EVM info, at the victor’s feet

MUMBAI: It’s possible for winning poll candidates to know about the localities which haven’t voted for them, courtesy EVMs. The address tag on an EVM gives the name of the polling centre, along with the serial number, and these can be made available to the candidates if their agent demands them.
“It’s a matter of right. We can’t deny him or her this information,’’ says deputy chief electoral officer K Suryakrishnamurty.In the last three Lok Sabha elections, ballot papers were ‘mixed’ at the counting centre. However, with votes being punched into the EVMs this time, it is impossible to ‘mix’ them.
AGNI media coordinator Sharad Kumar says that in the 1999 polls, EVMs were used to a limited extent and so it was possible to ‘mix’ them—that is, the EVMs were not counted in the order of their serial numbers. “But if a candidate wants to find out his poll percentage in an area, it is certainly not difficult,’’ he agrees.
Election Commission officials say the practice of mixing ballot papers had been adopted nationwide after it was found that some candidates used to target areas from where they got fewer votes.
“They would neglect these areas if they won,’’ says an official. The counting process this time will be a little different from the manual counting done earlier.
“All the EVMs of a particular assembly segment will be brought to the counting centre. They will be set on 14 tables and the sealed ‘Result’ button at the bottom of each EVM will be pressed in the presence of polling agents of all the candidates,’’ says Suryakrishnamurty. On pressing the button, the EVM will show the total number of votes polled, and the candidate-wise enumeration.
The address tag on each EVM will make it possible to figure out how each area voted. EVMs will do all this very quickly. The results for the state are expected to be out by 4 p.m. on counting day against the one-and-half-day regimen for manual counting.