Civic polls: moisture caused EVMs to malfunction in Malappuram, Thrissur

Thiruvananthapuram: Moisture in the circuit boards of electronic voting machines caused malfunctioning of the machines during polling in the civic elections in Malappuram and Thrissur districts, reports the high level committee constituted look into the matter.

More than 300 machines had malfunctioned with the ballot units showing ‘Press Error’. Polling had been disrupted because of this problem and repolling was ordered in the case of 114 units.

The committee found that the of the 1.12 lakh ballot units supplied by Electronic Corporation of India, about 20000 belonging to a batch were prone to malfunction in damp atmospheric conditions. A preliminary examination had shown that the control units were free of defects.

The Election Commission has asked the company to rectify the defects in all machines belonging to the particular batch on the basis of the findings of the committee. The comprised of former Pro Vice Chancellor of Indira Gandhi Open University K. R. Sreevatsan, Director General of C-DAC Rajat Moona and Executive Director of C-DAC B. Ramani.