Shillong: The electorate in Meghalaya is casting its vote to elect the new members to the 60-member Legislative Assembly in the M3 model of electronic voting machine (EVM), Chief Electoral Officer Frederick Roy Kharkongor said on Monday.
He said around 5000 EVMs has been rolled out for the polls.
“The M3 model EVM is sleeker and lighter in weight. It is very helpful at the time of transport and shifting. The M3 model EVM has strong Mutual Authentication Capability, mutual authentication among all components of EVMs such as BU, Control Unit (CU) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) has been strengthened by use of various advanced security protocols,” Kharkongor told UNI.
As against the M2 EVMs, wherein only 4 ballot units could be connected together, he said, the M3 EVMs 24 ballot units could be connected together.
“With each BU capable of handling 16 candidates (including NOTA), the feature enables a possibility of handling 384 candidates per constituency using the M3 EVMs. Therefore, M3 EVMs are highly scalable in their operations,” he said.
The Chief Electoral Officer said another unique feature of the new voting machine is the Unauthorised Access Detection Module (UADM), a protective circuit/feature embedded in the M3EVMs.
“In case of any unauthorised attempt at accessing the microcontroller or the memory of the EVMs, the UADM automatically puts the machine in the factory mode rendering it totally inoperable. Subsequently, the machine could be set right only in the factories. This adds to the tamper-proof nature of the EVMs,” Kharkongor said.
“Automatic self-diagnostics at SWITCH-ON, has been introduced for checking the health of various subsystems of the EVMs. This feature will be useful in identifying and weeding out any potentially defective machines at a starting stage itself, thereby helping in smooth conduct of polls. This superior security feature adds to the integrity of the EVMs,”he said.
Kharkongor said the machine have a strong mutual authentication capability among all components of EVMs such as ballot unit, control unit and VVPAT by use of various advanced security protocols. “This superior feature of mutual authentication capability adds to the integrity of the EVMs,” he said.
The M3 EVMs has an accurate battery life prediction facility which enables polling officials to keep track of the batter usage on a continuous and accurate basis, and a plan for replacements in advance.
