Poll Staff Training and hands-on-training on use of EVMs, a mock drill on EVM voting

 Poll Staff Training and hands-on-training on use of EVMs, a mock drill on EVM voting

Chandigarh, June 11:

Proper and professional training of polling officials is an integral part of the preparation for elections. The primary objective of training is to equip the polling personnel with the required knowledge and skills to conduct elections strictly as per Law, Rules and instructions. For this purpose, two rounds of training are conducted in smaller groups so that there is adequate opportunity for interaction and doubt clearing. In the training programmes, hands-on-training related to their role/duties on use of EVMs is also conducted as per guidelines of the Election Commission of India.

Punjab CEO Sibin C informed that First Training of polling and presiding officers to be deployed at 194 polling stations for conducting poll on 19-06-2025 for Bye election 064-Ludhiana West was organized on 04-06-2025 at Auditorium Khalsa college for women. 1552 polling personnel in Two Shifts at morning 09.00AM and Afternoon at 02.00 PM were trained during the training programme.

As a part of hands-on-training on use of EVMs, a mock drill on EVM voting was conducted by every Presiding Officer/polling officer individually on separate machines. In the mock drill voting, 388 Presiding Officers participated.

During the mock drill, individual Presiding Officers cast at least 100 votes in EVM for dummy candidates on a random basis. After completion of mock voting, Presiding Officers personally tallied manual record of votes cast with electronic result of Control Unit and thereafter, electronic result from Control Unit with respective VVPAT slips count. No mismatch was found in manual record of votes cast, electronic result of EVM and VVPAT slips count.

The Presiding and Polling officers thanked the Election Commission for this hands-on training and came out fully satisfied and showed complete confidence in the functioning of the EVM machines.