<i>EVM, the magic box </i>
The voting in Narsingdi municipality by-election ended at 4:00pm yesterday. One hour later, the results were in hand.
But, how?
A voter had the answer, "It was nothing but the magic box--Electronic Voting Machine (EVM)". He need not give any second thought.
Traditionally, it would take hours to announce the results after completion of counting and accumulating of votes. EVM has now made the process immensely faster.
“I can still remember clearly that it took eight hours after the voting ended at 4:00pm to declare the results in the last municipality polls of Narsingdi held January 17, 2011", Nabi Newaz, a 75-year-old voter, told The Daily Star as the results of yesterday's polls were announced around 5:00pm.
Newaz said he received the January 17 election results at midnight around 12:05am [that means January 18] due to conventional system of vote taking and counting.
All of over 100 voters that this correspondent contacted at different polling stations yesterday, including Newaz, expressed their gladness after casting votes in EVM. This is the second time in the country that all the voters used EVM, as all the 31 centres of the municipality were equipped with the device.
While visiting Abu Taleb, presiding officer of Shalidha poll centre, yesterday, he told this correspondent, "It's now 2:30pm. But in the meantime, more than 70 percent of voters have cast their votes and it has been possible only because of EVM”.
“Previously, it had taken 5-10 minutes to complete the process of casting a vote. But now it took a single minute on average to complete the same process”, he added.
More than 337 voters could cast their votes in the first hour in a polling centre yesterday, which could not be possible anyway if EVM was not used, Mihir Sarwar Morshed, an election officer of Dhaka region, said, citing a survey of the Election Commission.
"I just pressed the specific button… and that's all”, Alifa Begum, a voter at Bidda Sundari poll centre, said.
Earlier, the voters of Comilla City Corporation and Narayanganj City Corporation had found EVM very much user-friendly, putting an end to all controversy and confusion over its use.
The main opposition BNP, however, decided not to back any candidate in the Comilla City Corporation polls as the EC had turned down its demand for not using EVM and deployment of army. The party also had boycotted the Narayanganj City Corporation elections at the last moment on the same ground.
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