First EVM-only polls

It is now evident that concerns regarding the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) raised by the opposition political parties and experts have fallen on deaf ears. The Election Commission (EC) is going ahead with its decision to hold its first major EVM-only polls. However, we don't think it's too late to remind the EC that these concerns should have been taken seriously and appropriate measures adopted to address people's anxieties.

To begin with, we cannot fathom what justification the EC has for doing away with the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), a printed receipt-like document which shows voters that their votes have been cast and for whom. In its absence, it is feared that the election officers can override EVMs, if a voter's biometrics does not match the database. What is most concerning is that the decision to exclude it was taken despite the reservations of Professor Jamilur Reza Choudhury, who was the head of the Technical Committee formed by the EC itself. The logic provided by the EC for doing away with the paper trail was reportedly to avoid "technical difficulties in printing the receipts". Talk about a classic case of cutting off the head to get rid of a headache! While we acknowledge the technical difficulties faced by many voters during the parliamentary elections a year ago, we cannot help but wonder why the EC was so eager to make an all EVM-polls—spending a whopping Tk 4,000 crore even though there was no budgetary allocation for EVM purchases—if it could not figure out the simple function of printing out receipts.

Meanwhile, during the last parliamentary elections, the common complaint of voters in the six constituencies where EVMs were deployed was that their ballots were cast by someone else in their presence. What steps, if any, were taken by the EC to investigate these allegations in those particular polling centres? Equally urgent is the question: what steps, if any, is the EC going to take to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the upcoming polls? 

All said and done, we hope the EC is fully cognizant of the risks it has taken by introducing the EVMs in such a hurried and undemocratic manner, without the consensus of all political parties and without taking into consideration public concerns. We urge the EC to dispel our skepticism by ensuring no untoward incident takes place on polls day.