'High temperatures primary reason for VVPAT malfunctions'

Maharashtra's Bhandara District Magistrate Abhimanyu Kale on Monday cited heat as the primary reason for the malfunctioning of the Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) during the polling in the Bhandara-Gondia Lok Sabha constituency.

"When the voting started, there were complaints regarding the VVPATs not working. VVPATs are thermostatic and since the last ten days, the temperature here has been between 40-45 degrees Celsius, so because of thermosensitivity, they were not functioning," Kale told ANI after the EC rebuffed media reports of polling being cancelled in 35 booths in the parliamentary constituency.

"Our engineers went there and rectified it," he added.

The EC had earlier debunked reports alleging large-scale failure of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and VVPATs in the bye-elections in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

The ECI said it is just an exaggerated projection of reality while clarifying that poll body allocates sufficient reserve of EVMs and VVPATs for every general/bye-election to the Lok Sabha or state legislative assembly.

It is pertinent to mention that during polling, a number of reserve EVMs and VVPATs (around 20-25 percent) are kept available to replace any defective machine on the election day at the polling booth.

These reserve EVMs/VVPATs are kept with sector officers, who replace the defective ones if reports of malfunctions are received from any polling station.

The poll body further noted that the replacement of defective EVMs/VVPATs during actual polls is a normal process and does not vitiate the integrity or credibility of the poll process in any way whatsoever.