“Excess slip was printed due to partial symbol loading in VVPATs,” Bharat Electronics on the Kasargod EVM controversy said

During the mock poll in the Kasaragod Lok Sabha seat, an extra VVPAT slip could have been printed if the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machine had been disconnected from its Symbol Loading Unit (SLU) before printing all of the election symbols or if the process had moved on to the next step before finishing. This is the conclusion of a report on the incident that Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), the company that makes the EVMs, provided to the Election Commission.

During the mock vote in the Kasaragod Parliamentary seat on Wednesday, irregularities were found in four EVMs. The VVPAT machine produced 11 printouts after each of the ten candidates received a “vote” in the EVMs. It was discovered that the BJP’s “Lotus” emblem appeared twice during the simulated election.

According to the BEL report that TNIE was able to see, all of the symbols are first loaded from SLU to VVPAT and then printed constantly without any breaks throughout the election symbol loading procedure. A partial printed slip is created up to the point of disconnection and is not clipped if the VVPAT is unplugged from SLU before printing all of the loaded symbols.

According to the BEL report, “the printout of the standardization slip generated during symbol loading will add to the partial printed slip generated during the next power-on event.” The combined printing (standardization slip and the partially printed symbol slip) will have the additional notice “NOT TO BE COUNTED” displayed at the top in consideration of this scenario.

The BJP candidate Ashwini M L’s lotus emblem was at the top of the list in the candidates’ alphabetical order. “In the event that SLU and VVPAT are disconnected when printing the first candidate. the same is added to the standardization slip during the mock vote at the next power on event, according to BEL. According to the BEL report, these slips should be thrown away during the mock poll verification process since they have the words “NOT TO BE COUNTED” at the top. According to BEL, “the incomplete symbol loading that had occurred in four VVPATs in Kasaragod could have occurred due to the cable being disconnected or by moving the VVPATs to the next stage before the prints were finished.”

“Completed quickly”

Two employees in each assembly segment make up the 280 BEL engineers who have been assigned to the state’s 20 parliamentary seats.

The survey panel apparently believes that the commissioning procedure, which was completed by BEL engineers in a rush, led to the disaster and was a “serious lapse” on their side.