Nagaland first to use VVPAT system

Nagaland became the first state in the country to use a high-tech voter recording system, which leaves a verifiable paper trail of votes cast, in the by-election to the Noksen Assembly constituency, the results of which were declared today.

During the counting of votes today, the number of votes displayed in voting machines against each of the contesting candidates tallied with the paper slips generated by printers of 'Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail' (VVPAT) system on actual counting of these paper slips.
Naga People's Front candidate C M Chang won the seat securing 5708 votes, while the Congress nominee Luma Onen Chang (INC) lost getting only 2845 votes. The voting for the Noksen bypoll was held on September 4.

Under the new VVPAt system, a printer is attached to the balloting unit of the voting machine and is kept along with the balloting unit inside the screened voting compartment.
When a voter casts his vote by pressing the EVM button of a candidate's name and symbol of his choice, apart from the red light glowing against the name and symbol of the candidate, the printer also generates a paper slip containing the serial number, name and symbol of candidate for whom the vote has been cast.

This paper slip remains visible to the voter through a window covered by glass on the printer and after sufficient time gets automatically cut and falls into the box permanently attached below the printer. This enables the voter to verify and satisfy himself that the vote cast by him for the candidate of his choice has been actually recorded correctly for that candidate.

In case of any doubt, these paper slips can be counted at the time of the counting of votes and tallied with the number of votes recorded in the control unit of the voting machine.