Guwahati: A total of 150 complete Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) sets were replaced due to malfunctioning across the five Lok Sabha seats in Assam where voting is underway on Friday, officials said.
Besides, more than 400 components such as VVPATs and ballot units of different EVMs were also replaced because of snags. Most of the glitches were noticed during the mock polling, which started 90 minutes before the commencement of the actual voting, and those machines were replaced accordingly, a senior official of the Election Department told PTI.
"After the actual voting started, six EVMs with the complete set were changed. Besides, 40 more VVPATs were replaced in different polling stations," he added. An EVM has three components -- Control Unit (CU), Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) and Ballot Unit (BU).
During the mock poll, 150 complete sets of EVMs were replaced after they malfunctioned, the official said. "Apart from the complete sets, 140 CUs, 230 VVPATs and 81 BUs were also replaced individually from different machines across the constituencies," he added.
The official, however, declined to share details such as how many EVMs malfunctioned in which constituency. Another official said that reports of EVM malfunctioning came from at least three polling booths of Bihpuria in Lakhimpur, one each in Hojai, Kaliabor and Bokakhat, and one in Naharkatia of Dibrugarh.
"Voting at Jorbil Baniya LP School booth in Majuli started one hour late as the EVM stopped functioning and it began after a new machine arrived. Two more polling stations at Majuli witnessed more than an hour delay in voting due to malfunctioning," he added. Likewise, failure of three EVM sets resulted in almost an hour delay in three polling stations in Mariani, the official said.
The total number of polling stations in the first phase is 10,001, of which 92 are model polling stations, 11 are PwD-managed and 752 are women-operated centres. Webcasting is being done in 5,509 polling stations.
