Chhattisgarh Assembly elections: VVPAT to be used if polls held on time

Chhattisgarh voters will exercise their franchise with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), provided that the state goes to the polls according to schedule.  

According to the schedule, the term of the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will end in the second week of December this year. The state is likely to go to the polls in November. 

"The Election Commission has decided to install the electronic voting machine (EVM) and VVPAT in all the polling booths of Chhattisgarh," said Subrat Sahoo, the state's chief election officer. The preparation for using the new system has started, he added. 

A workshop has been organised on August 21 and 22 for employees deployed on election duty to inform them about using the VVPAT. Besides displaying the machine in each booth, a rath (chariot) yatra will be taken out in rural areas to make the voters aware. 

The new system will allow voters to verify that their vote was cast correctly and detect possible election fraud or malfunction. Further, it provides a means to audit the stored electronic results.    

Chhattisgarh's voters will be acquainted with the new technology only if the state goes to the polls according to schedule. Elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan are slated for later this year. The corridors of power are abuzz with reports that the polls in the three states could be clubbed with polls in Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Mizoram and Odisha, to be held with the 2019 general elections.

The Election Commission had reportedly said that with the available EVM and VVPAT machines, simultaneous polls cannot be held as it would take at least three years to procure the required number of machines.