Hyderabad: The upcoming Khammam Municipal Corporation elections in Telangana would be held with voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT)-enabled EVMs at some polling stations, a senior State Election Commission (SEC) official said on Thursday.
The Khammam and Warangal Municipal Corporations will have elections on March 6. It is for the first time that paper-trail in Electronic Voting Machines is going to be used in a local body election in the country, SEC Secretary Ashok Kumar said.
Kumar said 35 polling stations in Khammam would have the EVMs with paper-trail. There are a total of 265 polling stations in the town.
VVPAT is a printer-like machine attached to the EVMs that allows voters to verify if their vote has been cast correctly. After the voter presses the button of his choice a printed paper appears containing the name of the candidate and poll symbol so that he can verify it.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Nasim Zaidi had recently said polling for the 2019 general elections will be conducted through VVPAT-based EVMs to "enhance transparency".
"We have reached a stage where people are demanding 100 per cent deployment of paper audit trail machines. We have preserved the secrecy (in this system) as well. Our plan is that by 2019, the whole country will be covered by paper audit trail machines. The budget for this has been committed now," Zaidi had said.
The counting of votes for Khammam and Warangal Municipal Corporations polls would be taken up on March 9.
