A piece of election history was made in the remote Tuensang district of Nagaland with the successful culmination of counting of votes today, i.e, on 7th September, 2013 for the bye-election to 51-Noksen (ST) Assembly Constituency, where poll was held on 4thSeptember, 2013 using, for the first time ever, the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system with Electronic Voting Machines. Under the VVPAT system, newly developed by the Electronics Corporation of India Limited and Bharat Electronic Limited, under the direction of the Election Commission and its Technical Experts Committee, a printer is attached to the balloting unit of the voting machine and is kept along with the balloting unit inside the screened voting compartment.When a voter casts his vote by pressing of the candidate’s button against the name and symbol of the candidate of his choice, apart from the red light glowing against the name and symbol of that candidate, the printer also generates a paper slip containing the serial number, name and symbol of candidate for whom the vote has been cast.This paper slip remains visible to the voter through a window covered by glass on the printer and after sufficient time gets automatically cut and falls into the box permanently attached below the printer.This enables the voter to verify and satisfy himself that the vote cast by him for the candidate of his choice has been actually recorded correctly for that candidate.In case of any doubt, these paper slips can be counted at the time of the counting of votes and tallied with the number of votes recorded in the control unit of the voting machine.
The two candidates who contested the said bye-election were - Shri C.M. Chang of Naga People‘s Front and Shri Luma Onen Chang of Indian National Congress. The counting of votes was conducted by the Returning Officer of 51-Noksen (ST) A.C. in the presence of Commission’s Observers and Counting Agents of both the contesting candidates. The details of votes cast are as under :
:12088
:8553
:3