The Election Commission has decided to use EVMs in the upcoming national elections based on the opinions of the political parties.
The Election Commissioner Md Alamgir made the above disclosure and also said that under the present Election Commission, a large number of elections, including the local government representative elections and by-elections, were held using the EVM and there are no complaints about the elections or no allegations of irregularities against the EVM.
Alamgir made the comment in an attempt to clear the controversy over conflicting information about political parties' stance on EVM use.
“The Election Commission has taken the decision to use EVMs in 150 constituencies in the national polls taking into consideration the written statements and video clips of the political parties who favoured the system during talks with the commission," said the election commissioner while talking to media on Sunday.
He said that 17 political parties, during dialogues with the commission, gave opinion favouring the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM).
He further said, “We are sure from all aspects that EVMs cannot be tampered with for vote rigging. Many have said that they want the use of EVM in polls if there is no possibility of vote rigging with the system.”
Mentioning that the commission has all the video clips of the meetings it held with the political parties, he said, “We have crosschecked the statements and footages trice and decided to use EVM in the polls based on the opinions of the political parties.”
The Election Commission in its roadmap unveiled on September 14 disclosed that it will use EVMs in 150 seats in the upcoming national election.
According to the roadmap, 12 of the 29 political parties which participated in the EC dialogue, were directly in favour of EVM, 6 were directly against it and 11 political parties were in favour of EVM subject to conditions.
Based on these figures, a total of 23 political parties are directly and conditionally in favour of EVMs. But, the same roadmap in another place listed 17 parties in favour of EVMs and 12 against it.
The claim that 17 political parties are in favour of EVM is also based on inconsistent information.
A review of the written proposals given by the parties in the EC dialogue shows that 3 out of 17 parties – Bangladesh Islami Front, Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish, Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan – were against EVMs.
The EC held dialogues with 28 registered political parties out of the total 39 in July last. Nine parties including BNP, which did not participate in the dialogue, are also against the use of EVM in national elections.
On the last day of dialogue with political parties, CEC Kazi Habibul Awal himself said at talks with the Awami League that most political parties do not believe in EVMs.