Viji, an entrepreneur from West Mambalam in Chennai, had arrived at 12.15 pm to vote at the local primary school at Easwaran Koil Street. However, as soon as she arrived, polling officers at the booth told her that the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) was malfunctioning.
For the next four hours, all voters who came to the booth were turned away and the faulty EVM was finally fixed only at 3.30 pm, Viji tells TNM.
Viji's booth was not the only one that housed malfunctioning EVMs. On Thursday morning, voters who shared their booth with actor-turned-politician Kamal Hassan at the Corporation school in Thiruvalluvar Salai, Teynampet, reported delay in voting as the machines were malfunctioning.
“When I went to vote on Thursday morning around 7 am, the machine was not working. I had to come back after 10 am to cast my vote. The officials at the booth never told us why the machines were malfunctioning,” Venugopal, a voter from Eldams Road in Chennai told TNM.
‘EVM displaced my vote'
Mugilan Rajappan*, another voter from Foreshore estate, Chennai, was shocked to see a faulty EVM cast his vote to the wrong serial number.
“I had voted for serial number X, but it cast my vote to serial number Y. I noticed it when there was a delay in the red light emerging after I pressed the button and the VVPAT had a slip with the photo of another candidate. I informed the officials concerned that it was not the candidate for whom I voted, but they asked me to leave,” Mugilan.
Despite arguing with two senior officers, the authorities were not willing to reset or look into the issue, Mugilan told TNM. "I had even divulged to them which candidate I voted for and whose name appeared in the ballot," he said. Finally, following the instructions of the officers, Mugilan wrote a letter to the Election Commission, requesting for a re-vote, as the machine registered the vote wrong.
"They accepted the letter but did not note down my phone number or any contact details. I am waiting to see if they will act on this complaint," Mugian added.
Low turnout percentage
Post 11 am, the State witnessed a lull in voter turnout percentages due to complaints of issues with EVMs and VVPAT, the verification system for voting machines. According to Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Tamil Nadu Satyabrata Sahoo, at least 384 EVMs and 692 VVPATS were replaced by the Election Commission on Thursday in Tamil Nadu - a state that has 5.8 crore voters casting their votes in 67,700 booths across the constituencies.
As on 9 pm on Thursday, Chennai had a dismal turnout of 59.01 percentage in its three Lok Sabha constituencies. Chennai has been seeing a steady decline in voter turnout in the last three years and this year, the voter turnout in the city is one of the poorest in the State.
“The polling rate had come down due to complaints about EVMs and VVPATs malfunctioning. So we replaced them. Polling has been peaceful so far and after initial hitches, it is going on smoothly,” CEO Sahoo explained to the media.
Did voters return to vote?
What happens to the scores of voters who turned up at 7 am and 8 am at the polling booths but were turned away initially due to the faulty machines? Many voters don’t return to vote, says those who encountered faulty EVMs in their booths.
“A group of people behind me in the queue, who had turned up to vote, left to Ramapuram and they said they will not be returning to vote,” Viji who voted in West Mambalam told TNM.
Polling booths in all constituencies, except Madurai in Tamil Nadu, were open from 7 am to 6 pm. However, when TNM enquired, the officials at the booth in West Mambalam, where Viji cast her vote, extended the polling time only up to one hour, that is, till 7 pm, despite voters being robbed of their three hours or more.
*Name changed to protect identity