Will voters fall victim to political apathy?

By V. Venkatasubramanian

NAGAPATTINAM, MAY 11. With the counting of votes to be taken up on Sunday the anxiety among the party cadres may ease, but for the voters the real trauma is expected to begin from that date.

No doubt the electronic voting machines had made the job easier for all those involved in the exercise of conducting the poll but at the same time the use of EVMs is all set to make the hapless voters fall victim to political apathy, once again in view of the fact that the Election 2001 is crucial for both the electoral combines.

The `all powerful' voters really enjoyed immunity after the former Chief Election Commissioner, Mr. T .N. Seshan, changed the method of counting by mixing the ballots instead of enumerating the votes booth-wise.

Under the process, 10 or 15 ballot boxes of the Assembly constituency would be opened in the presence of counting agents and the ballots would be bundled. These bundles would be put in a huge drum for mixing and after shuffling, they were apportioned equally to each counting desk.

This had virtually prevented the political parties from `identifying' their vote banks, though they had the details of how many votes were polled in each polling booth.

But this time, the chances of identification of vote banks by political parties is more as each EVM has been provided with a particular number which will be cross checked by the political party counting agents during the time of ballot enumeration.

Enquiries reveal that counting in an EVM will be done as follows: First the total number of votes attached to the booth and actual number of votes polled in that booth will be announced by the counting official and will be cross checked by the political party counting agents. Then the seals on the machine will be broken and a button provided in it will be pressed to display total number of votes cast followed by the break up of votes polled in favour of each candidates.

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Section  : State Elections
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