The Election Commission has started deleting data from Electronic Voting Machines (EVM). According to sources, all the ‘data’ related to voting in the Assembly elections which has been ‘stored’ in the machines, is being ‘deleted’ from July 1 as per the rules. The sources further said that the deletion has started 45 days after the announcement of the results of the vote.
Out of 294 assembly seats in the state, 292 witnessed voting. All the EVMs used in the polls are being cleared, except for a few cases where the results have been challenged. According to sources, the results of eight assembly seats have been sued so far.
The task of deleting the date from the EVMs in which the votes were deposited is a process called ‘clearing the EVM’. Cleared EVMs will be used in the future during other polls. Earlier, officials in charge of the commission looked into whether there was any discrepancy between the EVM’s information and the EVM’s information after the vote.
There were talks within the commission that this process would take place in August. But EC later changed that instructions. It was decided that the work of deleting the data of EVMs will be done in July.
According to the commission, these EVMs will be used in the elections in other states or the seats in this state during by-elections. However, the commission has not yet clarified anything about this. According to them, the work of clearing all the information should be completed first. Then it will be decided when and in which election these EVMs will be used.