Agartala, March 21: The Election Commission has completed the randomisation process of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) devices for the upcoming Tripura Assembly bypoll scheduled on April 9, officials said on Saturday.
The randomisation of EVMs and VVPATs is a crucial step aimed at enhancing transparency and boosting confidence among political parties and voters. By ensuring that machines are allocated through a computerised random process, the Election Commission seeks to eliminate any scope for bias or manipulation in their deployment.
According to the poll body, EVMs and VVPATs are distributed to constituencies and polling stations through a two-stage randomisation process. In the first stage, machines are randomly selected and allocated from district-level warehouses to the respective Assembly constituencies. This ensures that no fixed set of machines is pre-assigned to any particular constituency.
In the second stage, the machines are further randomised at the Assembly constituency level and assigned to individual polling stations. This additional layer of randomisation strengthens the integrity of the electoral process by making it impossible to predict which machine will be used at a specific polling booth.
Election officials emphasised that the entire exercise is carried out in the presence of representatives from political parties, ensuring transparency and accountability at every step. This practice has been instrumental in building trust in the electoral system over the years.
The Election Commission also confirmed that similar randomisation processes have been completed for Assembly elections scheduled on April 9 in Assam, Kerala and Puducherry. In addition, the exercise has been carried out for Assembly bypolls in states including Goa, Karnataka and Nagaland.
With the completion of this key preparatory step, election authorities are now focused on ensuring smooth and fair conduct of polling across all notified constituencies.
