By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The State authorities are gearing up to field dummy candidates and select symbols for the upcoming mock polls at Sohra (Cherrapunjee) on July 26.
The world’s ‘wettest’ place was selected among five locations in the country to test the feasibility of the Vote Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system to be used during elections.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has planned to experiment with the VVPAT after various political parties expressed their apprehensions about chances of manipulation of votes and authenticity of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
Addressing a press conference on Saturday, Sub Divisional Officer (SDO), Sohra, James Suchiang, said dummy candidates would be fielded and symbols recognised by the ECI will be allotted for the mock polls soon.
The date of the election had been postponed from July 24 to July 26. The counting would be held on July 27.
The VVPAT is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballotless voting system, including a direct recording electronic voting system (DRE), to assure voters that their votes have been recorded as intended. The system is expected to detect fraud and equipment malfunction.
Besides Sohra, the four other places going for the mock polls are – Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, NCT of Delhi in East Delhi district and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan.
Sohra was selected to check the feasibility of the VVPAT in extreme weather conditions.
The polling would be held in 36 polling stations of Sohra and Shella constituencies and there would be 16 dummy candidates each for the two constituencies.
According to Suchiang, an extensive campaign would be held from July 19 to inform the electorates about the “poll” so that maximum people turn out on the polling day.
The authorities are expecting a turnout of around 55 per cent.
Observers from various political parties from the north-eastern states will witness the mock poll.