Did dampness play spoil sport with EVMs in Kerala?

During the local body elections in Kerala in 2015, about 300 electronic voting machines (EVMs) malfunctioned and a technical inquiry found that dampness in the circuit board of the ballot units owing to humidity, led to the snag.

On Tuesday too, isolated instances of EVMs malfunctioning were reported and Kerala's Chief Electoral Officer Teeka Ram Meena said that it could be due to humidity. Some parts of Kerala experienced thunder showers and windy conditions during the last few days.

Former Kerala State Election Commissioner K Sasidharan Nair recollected that in 2015 the technical snag was found mainly in Malappuram and Thrissur districts that were having heavy rain at that time.

A high-level committee of experts from the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing and Indira Gandhi National Open University found that dampness in circuit boards of the EVMs owing to climatic conditions had led to the mass malfunctioning.

The problem was found in one batch of EVMs procured from the Electronic Corporation of India and the issue was reported to them, he said.