Nagaland today became the first state to use the high-tech voter recording system 'Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail' (VVPAT) with Electronic Voting Machines for the by-elections to Noksen Assembly constituency.
VVPAT is a device attached with EVMs which leave a verifiable paper trail of votes cast in an election. It allows the voter to check whether his vote has been recorded with the candidate he had wished to vote for in the EVM.
Tuensang Deputy Commissioner and DRO, Mhumbemo Lotha said that a total of 70.3 per cent exercised their franchise through the VVPAT without any problem faced by either the election officials or the voters.
He said polling in all the 21 booths ended peacefully in a free and fair manner, except for commotion at Longrah polling station due to alleged mismatch of a voter slip.
The security personnel in the booth resorted to blank firing in order to control the situation. The voting continued normally after the intervention of the sector magistrate, he said.
Out of the total 12,074 electorates, including 6,142 males and 5,832 females, only 70.3 per cent exercised their franchise in 21 polling stations spread over 19 villages in the constituency.
The by-poll to Noksen constituency was necessitated following the resignation of Minister for School Education C M Chang to retain lone Lok Sabha seat from Nagaland in order to avoid the parliamentary by-polls as parliamentary elections are due by early part of 2014.
Chang resigning from the state assembly on March 14 last had said that he wanted to come to the state assembly to work for the welfare and development of his constituency in particular and the Nagas in general.
The by-poll witnessed straight fight between NPF-candidate CM Chang and Congress nominee Lima Onen.
Counting of votes will be done on September 7.
