Printing of EVM ballot paper shall be done preferably at a government or semi-Government Press.
New Delhi: Starting from Bihar assembly polls, the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) will, for the first time, have colour photographs of the candidates along with their serial number displayed more prominently as the Election Commission of India (ECI) has revised the guidelines for the design and printing of EVM ballot papers to enhance their clarity and readability.
The guidelines under Rule 49B of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, have bee revised accordingly. ECI officials said the move is in line with the 28 initiatives already taken by the Commission in the past six months to streamline and improve election processes and enhance convenience for voters.
“Henceforth, photographs of candidates will be printed in colour on the EVM Ballot Paper. The candidate’s face will occupy three-fourths of the photo space for better visibility. Serial number, the name and photograph of the candidate shall be printed on the left-hand side and symbol on the right-hand side in the candidate panel. Serial numbers of candidates/NOTA will be printed in the international form of Indian numerals. The font size will be 30 and in bold for clarity. Photographs of the candidates shall be printed in colour (unless the candidate has provided only black and white photographs). The candidate's face should occupy 3/4th of the space in the photograph,” the ECI guidelines said.
The practice to use photographs on EVMs started 10 years ago with an aim to avoid confusion in constituencies where several candidates shared the same name or have similar sounding names. However, till now black and white photos were used.
To ensure uniformity, the names of all candidates/NOTA will be printed in the same font type and font size large enough for easy readability. The EVM Ballot Papers will be printed on 70 GSM paper. For Assembly Elections, pink-coloured paper of specified RGB values shall be used.
The guidelines added that the names of not more than fifteen candidates shall be arranged on one sheet of a ballot paper and NOTA option will come after the last name of the panel. If the number of contesting candidates together with NOTA option is less than sixteen, the space below the panel after this shall be kept blank.
Printing of EVM ballot paper shall be done preferably at a government or semi-Government Press. However, in case, a government or semi-government printing press is not available or does not have required capacity, private printing press with required capacity can be selected after following due procedure and adequate provision and safety of the process shall be ensured as per the existing instructions, the ECI said in a letter to all state election officials.
“The upgraded EVM Ballot Papers will be used in the upcoming elections, starting with Bihar,” ECI officials said.
