To sensitize the residents about importance of voting in upcoming general elections, official of district administration along with socially active residents of Ghaziabad held a voter awareness program at the premises of Savvy Ville De, a residential condominium in Rajnagar Extension on Wednesday.
The event was attended by hundreds of residents.
Officials of district administration such as City Magistrate Yashvardhan Srivastava cleared the doubts and answered queries of the residents.
Besides, the officials also informed residents about using Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) with Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) which will be used in Lok Sabha elections of 2019. This is the first general election where a paper audit trail would be attached with the EVM.
Meanwhile, activist like Alok Kumar, who runs Federation of Apartments Owners Association from Indirapuram, shared the voters about importance of voting and encouraged them to turn out in huge number on the day of election.
What is VVPAT?
The VVPAT, which is connected to the balloting unit of the EVM, generates a printed slip as soon as you cast your vote. The slip briefly displays the party symbol, the candidate and serial number that you chose, allowing you to immediately cross-check who your vote went to.
However, the display would be visible only for seven seconds, and you cannot keep the paper record. The printed slip automatically gets cut, and vanishes into a sealed drop box.
How it came into effect?
After a Supreme Court's order in 2013, Election Commission of India (ECI) had introduced the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT). The order had come about in a petition filed by Subramanian Swamy, currently a Member of Parliament from Bhartiya Janta Party.
Swamy had first approached the Delhi High Court opposing the use of EVMs. The Delhi HC agreed that EVMs were not tamper-proof, but didn’t issue any direction to the ECI. Swamy then approached the Supreme Court, which ordered that the EC should use VVPATs in a phased manner, and should complete installation by 2019.
