Mizoram polls: VVPATs to be used on large-scale for the 1st time

Aizwal: With voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) being used on a large-scale for the first time in the country in the Mizoram Assembly polls, the Elections Commission is leaving no stone unturned to make it easily accessible to voters.’

The VVPAT is a machine attached to EVMS which allows voters to verify that their vote has been cast in the way they wished. As soon as the voter casts his vote, the VVPAT will show a small slip in a glass covered screen with the symbol and the candidate he has voted for in a form of a small ballot paper, which after 3 to 4 seconds would automatically fall into an attached closed box. The VVPATs are being used in only ten assembly constituencies of Aizwal district of the total 40 assembly segments. The VVPAT system was first experimented in the Noksen Assembly bypoll recently in Nagaland and Mizoram would be the first state where it would be introduced on a large scale. Chief Electoral officer, Ashwini Kumar, under whose supervisions the elections are being conducted, is leaving no stone unturned to make voters comfortable with the use of VVPATS. "The VVPAT is a new thing which is being used for the first time. There are lot of people who are not aware of it. We have trained our polling officials in all these 10 assembly segments properly," Kumar said here.