Virtually confirming elections to the Karnataka Assembly in May, the Central Election Commission (CEC) has tasked the State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) with putting electronic voting machines in foolproof mode by subjecting them to mandatory checks done before any poll.

The CEC’s written orders to the State CEO on Tuesday, received on Wednesday, implied that every single EVM would have to undergo the mandatory testing for accuracy and physical quality parameters, highly placed sources in the Governor’s office told Deccan Herald.

Engineers from Bharat Electronics, manufacturers of the machines, would be deployed AT the district administration offices where these EVMs are stored after an election.

The first step would be to erase stored data of the previous election, which are generally saved in anticipation of election petitions challenging electoral verdicts. After the cleansing process, the physical condition of the machines have to be checked and mock voting trials conducted to ensure that a faulty EVM does not end up in a polling booth.

With 40,000 polling stations, some stations having more than 1,500 voters may have to be bifurcated, necessitating at least 50,000 EVMs in all, including some spares. The State has close to 65,000 machines, the sources said. With the official announcement of the dates of the elections expected any time after March 20, the hottest question in political circles is whether the election will be in May — tentatively between May 19 and 28 — or later.