Dummy e-voting ends in Khammam amid glitches

KHAMMAM: The e-voting alternative to postal ballots that was taken up by State Election Commission (SEC) as pilot project in Khammam Municipal Corporation (KMC) is completed amidst technical snags.

Though the Election Commission targeted enrolling 10,000 dummy voters for the pilot project, only 3,830 persons registered their names. Voting was held from 7 am to 5 pm and the voters could cast their votes from their houses or working places. There is no need to come to polling stations in the e-voting system.

Interestingly, only 2,128 persons were involved in the e-voting against 3,850 registered persons. Many voters complained that they did not get the one-time password (OTP) to cast their dummy vote. The result will be announced on October 21 by the SEC.

The ballot paper included three dummy candidates' names as Alpha, Beta, Gama and None of the Above (NOTA). It is expected that 650 persons, who registered their names did not turn up to the e-voting. Another 550 persons were unable to login and the remaining did not get the OTP to cast their votes.

N. Ravi, a student, who enrolled for e-voting said, “I logged into the website successfully, but I did not get the OTP to the smartphone. I tried thrice for it but I did not get it”

The pilot project of e-voting helped a lot in finding out the snags either technical or others. It is found that awareness among the voters should be more.

KMC commissioner Adarsh Surabhi, who monitored the e-voting said, “The e-voting taken up as a pilot project was a successful one. The per cent of voting registered as 55.67 per cent. About 14,800 persons tried to register their names but they are unable to vote due to various reasons like not linking Aadhaar and other reasons. The festival holidays are also one of the reasons for the less registration of voters.”