Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Mizoram set to vote on ‘tamper-proof’ machines

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission is set to roll out new version of Electronic Voting Machines — Version M3 — in full strength during the upcoming assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Mizoram. The EC maintains that the new version is “tamper-proof”.

Earlier this year, the EC had used these third-generation EVMs in seven constituencies during the Karnataka assembly polls.

The response of these EVMs in the four states will be crucial for the 2019 general elections. The commission aims to conduct the next year’s Lok Sabha polls completely with M3 EVMs and plans to deploy about 12 lakh such machines. Nearly two lakh such machines will be deployed in the upcoming state elections.


The EC is being extra-cautious over the new voting machines as EVMs have come under considerable attack from political parties since 2017 assembly elections. In fact, the EC was compelled to conduct an all-party meeting and an EVM hack challenge to put all doubts to rest.

Hectic drills are underway at EC offices and the four states to train the polling staff. That each EVM will be backed with brand new VVPAT is also adding to the overall nervousness, especially after the Kairana and Gondia bypoll experience where numerous VVPATs failed for a number of reasons.

Since inadequate training and understanding has been identified as key reasons for VVPAT malfunctions in bypolls, an additional round of training is being initiated for all polling staff to ensure there is no let-up in the electoral drill. While India switched to EVMs in 2006 with the M1 version that is one-time programmable, the upgraded M2 came into the field during 2006-10.

M1 EVMs were last used in the 2014 general elections and were phased out as they completed 15 years of their life cycle and were also not compatible with VVPATs (voter-verified paper audit trails).

The production of M3 EVMs started in 2013. It comes with additional features like tamper detection and self-diagnostics. The tamper detection feature makes an EVM inoperative the moment anyone tries to open the machine. The selfdiagnostic feature checks the EVM fully every time it is switched on.

Any change in hardware or software will be detected.