EVM faults delay voting, do not impact results: Rawat

NEW DELHI: Most malfunctions on polling days are related to VVPAT units as they are essentially electromagnetic printers and more prone to snags as compared to electronic voting machines (EVMs), but faults in either machines will only delay voting and not impact results, chief election commissioner O P Rawat has said.

In an interview to TOI on Thursday, a day before he retires, Rawat clarified that EVMs were time-tested, robust machines with minimal malfunction rate. As regards VVPATs that malfunctioned in MP on Wednesday, all such units would be sent to the manufacturer for design improvements, he said. The same was done for machines that developed snags in the May bypolls for Bhandara-Gondiya and Kairana Lok Sabha seats.

Around 3.5 per cent of VVPATs in MP had to be replaced, half of them during a mock poll that preceded the actual election. For EVMs, the failure rate was less than 0.5 per cent during actual polling and below 1 per cent in mock poll.


“No malfunction of EVM or VVPAT can alter the result. It only causes delay in voting and when voters are in queue, it may cause commotion and result in a law and order issue. All malfunctioning machines are replaced and systems are in place to extend voting hours if recommended,” Rawat said.

The CEC said voters in Assam excluded from the final NRC would not automatically forfeit their right to vote. The electoral registration officer, as part of a quasi-judicial process, could rely on other evidence of citizenship to take a decision on enrolment, he said.

On his decision to recuse from the office-of-profit case against 20 AAP MLAs after Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal accused him of bias, Rawat said the charge left him “shaken”. “Any party can say anything about any authority or agency. But when a presumably responsible person occupying the chief minister’s chair... says something, it shook my sensitivities,” he said.