New Delhi, April 15:The Election Commission today asked the two public sector units manufacturing EVMs to consider the possibility of introducing paper trail in voting machines used in the elections.
The issue of paper backup in the EVMs was discussed at the meeting of the EC’s Technical Expert Committee, headed by P V Indiresan, former Director of IIT, Madras.
The Committee asked the two public sector units, BEL and ECIL, to provide “detailed roadmap shortly” for further consideration of the Commission, the EC said in a statement.
The Committee would meet again after four weeks, EC said.
The EC last year referred the issue to the Committee after the suggestion emerged at a meeting of the political parties including BJP for a ‘voter verifiable paper trail’ in EVMs to enhance the confidence of voters.
Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi had said recently that a technique was being worked out wherein a voter, immediately after casting vote, will be able to see in the printout as to which he has voted for.
However, since the copy of the printout cannot be made available to the voter keeping in view secrecy issues, the Commission is trying to find a solution whereby the paper generated is immediately preserved without letting anybody get a copy of it.
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