SHILLONG: The State Government has sought the date of mock poll in Sohra among four places in the country on July 24 to be deferred.
“We have requested the Election Commission of India for a change of the date of the mock poll,” Chief Electoral officer P Naik said during a demonstration of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) device here on Wednesday.
The mock polling will be held in 36 stations in Sohra, which has been chosen for the exercise for its “extreme weather”. Ladakh in Jammu & Kashmir, Delhi, and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan are the three other places where the VVPAT machine will be used during the mock polling.
In the first system of VVPAT device, there is an attached printer where as soon as a voter votes for his candidate, an acknowledgement slip will be displayed through a small window in a machine box and it will fall directly in a small ballot box.
The second system is that after pressing in the EVM, the thermal paper will come out and the voter after having a look at the acknowledgment slip will have to drop the paper in the box before leaving the polling station.
“These two systems will be tried in the mock poll and after taking suggestions form different sectors, the election system will decide which mode of voting should be used during elections,” Naik said.
A firm, Bharat Electronics from Bangalore has designed the printers in the EVMs.