JOIN USOur responsibility to convince political parties of efficacy of EVMs: CEC Kumar
Amid several political parties again raising concerns over the efficacy of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Wednesday said it was the poll panel's responsibility to convince political parties of the voting machines.
"This question has been answered on several occasions. I don't want to answer it again except for the point that in a democratic system, political parties have a major role. They are very important stakeholders," Kumar told reporters.
Several opposition parties had last week flagged concerns over the reliability of EVMs and had urged the Election Commission to address their doubts.
He also said over the years, electronic voting machines have given results in favour of all those who have raised concerns over its reliability.
If anybody has any doubt about the electronic voting machines, they can approach us freely. We will try our best to convince them," he said.
The issue of the efficacy of the EVMs never came up in the past five assembly elections. People lost by less than 100 votes and candidates accepted it happily, he said.
He said besides technology, the process from the time an EVM is deployed till it is stored back in a warehouse is stringent and transparent. Representatives of parties are involved at each step, he said.
To another question on remote voting machines, the CEC said the poll panel has received suggestions on it, "but from a very limited number of parties. We wrote to close to 60 parties."
"The processes, the administrative part, the legal part and the technological part is a work in progress. Everybody has suggested ... it is a long-drawn process ... till that time, the outreach for bringing as many people to the polling station continues to be our focus," he said.