Consider the following statements about Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) in India : 1. The first use of EVMs in a Lok Sabha election was in the year 2004, when EVMs were deployed nationwide. 2. Votes are recorded in Control Units and VVPATs at exactly the same time. 3. Two PSUs, namely Bharat Electronics Ltd., and Electronics Corporation of India Ltd. have been engaged by the Election Commission of India to design and manufacture the EVMs. Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?

Correct — D, (d) 3 only. Two of the three statements fail, and the item is decided by statement 2.

Statement 1 — INCORRECT. Two different things are being run together: the first use of EVMs in a Lok Sabha election, and their first use everywhere in one. The Commission's own account of the machine's history records that after the 1998 Assembly rounds, EVM use 'was further expanded in 1999 to 45 Parliamentary Constituencies', and that 'In 2004, in the General Election to the Lok Sabha, the EVMs (more than one million) were used in all 543 Parliamentary Constituencies in the country'. So the second half of the statement is true — 2004 was the nationwide year — while the first half is not: a Lok Sabha election had already been fought partly on EVMs five years earlier. A statement is correct only if all of it is correct.

Statement 2 — INCORRECT, and this is where the item is won or lost. It claims two things, and neither survives. FIRST, a vote is not recorded in a VVPAT at all. The VVPAT is a printer with a status display unit; when a vote is cast a slip is 'printed containing the serial number, name and symbol of the candidate and remains exposed through a transparent window for 7 seconds', after which 'this printed slip automatically gets cut' and drops into a sealed box. The machine keeps no tally of votes — the count of record is the control unit's, and the Commission's own rules keep the two apart, speaking of an elector 'having recorded his vote' and, separately, of 'the paper slip generated by the printer'. SECOND, the two events are not simultaneous, because they are not parallel. The Commission told the Supreme Court in the 2024 VVPAT hearings that the signal flows from the Ballot Unit to the VVPAT and from the VVPAT to the Control Unit. The vote reaches the control unit THROUGH the printer, so one key-press produces a printed slip and then an entry in the control unit's memory. That is an ordinary sequence, and 'at exactly the same time' is the one claim a sequence cannot support.

Statement 3 — CORRECT, and it is the safest statement in the set. Two public sector undertakings build the machines to the Commission's design requirements: Bharat Electronics Limited, Bengaluru, and the Electronics Corporation of India Limited, Hyderabad. Both are named on the Commission's own pages, and the engineers who carry out first-level checking of the units and load the candidate symbols come from those two firms.

One statement correct, two not, so the answer is 3 only.

Why the looser reading of statement 2 does not carry. From the voter's side one button-press produces one beep, one slip behind the glass and one vote in the machine, and many descriptions of the paper trail compress that into 'simultaneously' — which is how a candidate reaches (b), 2 and 3. The statement as printed says something stronger than that compression. It puts the recording of votes IN the VVPAT, where no tally is kept, and it asserts exact coincidence for two events the Commission's own account of the wiring puts in order. A sentence that would have been true had it read 'a slip is printed as the vote is cast' is not true as printed, and on this paper the printed sentence is what is being judged.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)1 and 2 — This option keeps both of the statements that fail. The 2004 general election is famous as the first all-EVM Lok Sabha poll, and that is exactly what makes statement 1 read true at speed; what it actually claims is that no Lok Sabha election before 2004 used EVMs at all, and 45 parliamentary constituencies in 1999 disprove it. Statement 2 then fails on its own premise, since nothing is recorded in the printer. Two wrong statements make this the weakest option on the page.
• (b)2 and 3 — This is the serious rival to our answer, and it deserves the argument rather than a verdict. It is right about statement 1 and right about statement 3, and it reads statement 2 the loose way: from the voter's side one button-press produces one beep, one slip behind the glass and one vote in the machine, and a great many descriptions of the paper trail compress that into 'simultaneously'. The whole point of a verifiable paper trail is that the two records belong to the same key-press. We do not read it that way for two reasons the loose reading has to set aside. The statement says votes are recorded IN VVPATs, and no vote is: the printer produces a slip and keeps no tally, which is why VVPAT verification means hand-counting slips out of a sealed box rather than reading a total off the machine. And 'at exactly the same time' asserts a coincidence, where the Commission's own account of the wiring — Ballot Unit to VVPAT to Control Unit — describes a sequence. A statement that would be true if it said 'a slip is printed as the vote is cast' says something stronger and different.
• (c)1 and 3 — Statement 3 is correct, but this option carries statement 1 with it. It is the choice of a candidate who is sure about the two manufacturers, declines to commit on the machine's internal timing, and settles for the familiar-looking date. The date is the part that does not survive checking: 1999, not 2004, was the first Lok Sabha election fought partly on EVMs. Note that rejecting statement 2 — which this option does — is the same judgement our answer makes; the two differ only over statement 1.

An Indian EVM is a pair of connected units plus a printer. The BALLOT UNIT sits in the voting compartment and carries the candidates' names, symbols and buttons. The CONTROL UNIT stays with the presiding officer, who releases one vote at a time; it holds the memory in which votes are stored and later displays the result. The VVPAT printer, introduced to make the electronic count checkable against paper, is wired into that chain — and the order matters: the Commission told the Supreme Court in 2024 that the signal runs from the ballot unit to the VVPAT and from the VVPAT to the control unit. A key-press prints a slip that the voter sees through a transparent window for seven seconds before it is cut and drops into a sealed box, and the vote is entered in the control unit's memory. The printer itself keeps no tally of votes; the voter never handles the slip. At counting, VVPAT slips from a sample of polling stations are counted by hand and matched against the control units' totals.

Key facts

• The idea of an EVM was taken up in 1977; ECIL built a working model by 1979 and it was shown to political parties in August 1980.
• First field use was the May 1982 by-election in the North Paravur assembly constituency, Kerala; the Representation of the People Act, 1951 was amended in December 1988 (in force March 1989) to provide the legal basis.
• The Election Commission records use in 25 assembly constituencies in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi in 1998, then 45 parliamentary constituencies in the 1999 general election.
• 2004 was the first general election in which EVMs were used in all 543 parliamentary constituencies, with more than one million machines.
• Bharat Electronics Limited (Bengaluru) and the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (Hyderabad) are the two public sector undertakings that build the machines and whose engineers do first-level checking and symbol loading.
• The Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 were amended on 14 August 2013 to permit VVPAT; the first VVPAT use was the by-election in the 51-Noksen (ST) assembly constituency, Nagaland, in September 2013.
• A VVPAT slip carries the serial number, name and symbol of the candidate and stays visible for seven seconds before being cut into the sealed drop box.
• EVMs with VVPATs were used in every constituency in the 2019 general election.
• The Commission's account of the wiring, given to the Supreme Court during the 2024 VVPAT hearings, is that the signal flows from the Ballot Unit to the VVPAT and from the VVPAT to the Control Unit.
• The VVPAT keeps no record of votes cast — it prints slips into a sealed drop box, which is why VVPAT verification means counting those slips by hand rather than reading a total off the machine.

Common traps

• Reading 'first used' as 'first used everywhere' — the two are five years apart for the Lok Sabha.
• Assuming the Election Commission builds its own machines; it specifies them and two public sector undertakings build them.
• Treating the VVPAT as a place where votes are stored — it prints a paper record and keeps no tally; the count of record is the control unit's.
• Accepting 'at exactly the same time' for two events that the Commission itself describes as a sequence.
• Accepting a compound statement because one of its clauses is true.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In which general election to the Lok Sabha were Electronic Voting Machines used in all the parliamentary constituencies for the first time ?

  • (a)1998
  • (b)1999
  • (c)2004
  • (d)2009

  Answer(c) 2004

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail was used for the first time in India in a by-election in which one of the following States ?

  • (a)Kerala
  • (b)Nagaland
  • (c)Rajasthan
  • (d)Karnataka

  Answer(b) Nagaland