The Electronic Voting machines or EVM’s were first used in 1982 in the By-election to the North Paravur Assembly constituency in Kerala.
However, the Supreme Court declared the election invalid following the absence of a law prescribing EVM.
Later, in 1998, 45 EVMs were used in Legislative Assembly constituencies across Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, and Rajasthan, after a consensus was reached.
An Electronic Voting Machine consists of a Control Unit and a Balloting Unit with a cable linking both. A balloting unit can have up to 16 candidates.
The Electronic Voting Machine was designed by A.G Rao and Ravi Poovaiah, two professors of IIT Bombay.
Paper Ballots and manual counting were used before the advent of EVMs.
To upgrade the transparency and verifiability of the EVMs and make sure that the voter cast their votes as intended, Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail has been introduced.
A slip is generated, which contains the serial number, name, and symbol of the candidate.
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