Jaipur: For the first time, electronic voting machines (EVM) will have pictures of candidates along with their names. The Election Commission is going to using this experiment in byelections in Rajasthan later in January.
Bypolls are held on Lok Sabha seats of Ajmer and Alwar and Mandalgarh assembly constituency. Voting will take place on January 29.
Under the new system, EVMs will have name, photo and election symbol of a candidate in that order.
The size of the photo will be 2x2.5cm. For Nota, space for photo will be kept blank.
Postal ballot papers will also have photos of candidates but there the name of candidates will be mentioned in first in English then Hindi and the photo will come in the last. There are 11,580 employees who would use postal ballot papers. “This has been done to avoid confusion among voters regarding their candidate’s identity. The election commission of India has made this provision on a parliamentary or Assembly seat where two candidates are of same name,” said Chief Election Officer Ashvini Bhagat.
In the last few elections, it was seen that there were so many candidates with the same name, which created confusion among voters,” he added.
This experiment was done in the Dholpur Assembly byelection in Rajasthan, but it hasn’t been done anywhere in a Lok Sabah election.
