DUSU EVMs are different: EC

As the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) poll rekindled the controversy over the credibility of EVMs, the Election Commission stressed that the devices used by it were distinct from the ones deployed by the university.

The credibility of the EVMs once again came under shadow of doubt after the machines deployed by the Delhi University to conduct the polling for the election to the students' union malfunctioned on Thursday.

The EC, however, vouched for the "integrity, non-tamperability and credibility" of the EVMs used by it to conduct state Assembly and parliamentary elections.

The EC on Friday stated that the EVMs used by it were completely different from the ones used by the Delhi University.

"The basis of confidence of the commission flows from a wide range of technical and administrative protocols and procedural safeguards that protects our EVMs and VVPATs against any sort of tampering during manufacture, transportation, storage, polling and counting process," the EC said.

The ABVP, the students wing of the BJP, won three of the four seats in the DUSU, including that of the president. The Opposition Congress' students' wing National Students Union of India won just one seat in the union.

Some of the EVMs malfunctioned during the polling and counting for the DUSU elections on Friday. The electronic display of one of the EVMs did not work properly, while another machine displayed votes in a non-existent ballot numbered "10", while the total number of ballots, including the contesting candidates and the None-Of-The-Above option, was only nine.

The EVMs are manufactured only by the Bharat Electronics Limited and the Electronic Corporation of India Limited.

The EC in 2006 allowed the BEL and the ECIL to supply EVMs to the Delhi University, but made it clear that the design and colour of the machines provided to the varsity would be different from the ones procured by the commission.

The BEL and ECIL were allowed by the Commission to supply the EVMs to the State Election Commissions and other organisations till 2017. But, since May 2017, the BEL and the ECIL were directed to seek the EC's prior approval and to supply only the EVMs, which were different from the ECI-EVMs, to the State Election Commissions or to foreign countries, that too only after supplying the ones ordered by the commission, the poll-panel clarified.

“The commission uses only single post EVMs (i.e. vote can be cast only for one post). In the elections at DUSU, it is told that multi-post EVMs (i.e. vote can be cast for more than one post, for instance, President/Vice-President/General Secretary), which are technically completely different from ECI’s single post EVMs, have been used,” the EC pointed out in a statement on Friday.