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Paper ballots to make a comeback in GHMC polls

Apart from the ongoing Covid pandemic, many other factors, including technical aspects, were considered before deciding to employ ballot papers over EVMs

By Telangana Today

Updated On - 1 December 2020, 12:20 AM

Paper ballots to make a comeback in GHMC polls — The election officers and ballot boxes reach the polling stations on the eve of the GHMC polls here on Monday. -Photo: Surya Sridhar

Hyderabad: Paper ballots are all set to make a comeback in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections, after the 1986 and 2002 municipal corporation elections.
Paper ballots were employed in the elections to the erstwhile MCH (Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad) in 1986 and later in 2002 when the first ordinary elections to GHMC were conducted.

The 2009 and 2016 GHMC elections were conducted with EVMs without VVPATs.
This year, due to a host of factors, paper ballots are being used for GHMC elections. Apart from the ongoing Covid pandemic, many other factors, including technical aspects, were considered before deciding to employ ballot papers over Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

The decision to use ballot papers for the GHMC 2020 elections was taken after consulting almost all the political parties. As part of this initiative, special meetings were conducted with representatives of all political parties. On their part, a majority of the political parties conveyed their opinion to conduct GHMC elections with ballot boxes.

According to officials, specific procedures have to be followed while using EVMs. A couple of stages are involved before use of EVMs and VVPATs in polling stations, namely, first and second level checking, randomisation and commissioning of EVMs. In all these stages, lot of manpower, especially engineers have to be deputed by manufacturers, representatives of political parties, besides involvement of election staff.

More importantly, many unskilled workers will have to be deployed for cleaning, unpacking and packing EVMs and VVPATs in a closed environment. During the current Covid pandemic, officials felt that conducting all these above activities would involve high risk of community spread of novel corona virus (Covid-19), when compared to the use of ballot boxes.