EC incapable of holding entire general election thru EVM

Though the ruling Awami League, during a meeting of the party working committee, has signaled the use of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) at all 300 parliamentary constituencies in the next general election, the Election Commission (EC) is yet to decide as it lacks capacity.

EC said it plans first of all to eliminate the doubt of political parties regarding the use of EVM. The decision of using EVM will be taken later, as reports Prothom Alo.

Several political parties including BNP have been opposing the use of EVM terming it as ‘an automatic device of vote rigging’. They claimed that the voting process can be manipulated through programming. Whoever the voters vote for, it will be submitted to a particular symbol.

However, the issue of using EVMs in all constituencies came into the discussion after prime minister Sheikh Hasina insisted on it during Saturday’s meeting.

Election Commissioner Brigadier General (retd) Ahsan Habib Khan says, the EVM voting process is transparent and error-free. The EC is trying to gain the confidence of the political parties. The EC will hold discussions with the National Technical Advisory Committee on EVMs. Apart from that, various political parties will be invited to watch the EVM voting system. The use of EVMs in more constituencies will be decided at the commission meeting.

Another commissioner M Alamgir says, the commission had no capacity to hold elections to all 300 parliamentary constituencies through Electronic Voting Machines as it had no available machines for it.

‘We

did not discuss the use of EVMs in the next parliamentary polls as we are now busy about the mayoral polls to Cumilla City Corporation and some other municipalities,’ Alamgir said.

He said that the commission has the ability to hold elections in some 100 to 130 parliamentary constituencies through EVMs.

The next general election is scheduled at the end of 2023 or in early 2024.

Alamgir said that participants in recently held dialogues, hosted by the EC, gave various opinions about the use of EVMs in the next polls.

‘Some of them

were against using EVMs and some were in favour of it,’ he said, adding that the commission was reviewing the opinions.

He said that the commission was also analysing how neighbouring India was using EVM and getting success.

‘Our EVMs are smarter and technologically updated than India. There is nothing not to trust our EVM. Now the issue is about gaining people’s trust, we are looking forward to achieving it,’ the election commissioner said.