The DMK on Wednesday wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, and other election commission officials seeking the use of recently manufactured EVMs for the upcoming Assembly poll on April 6.

It also sought the provision of CCTV live coverage or live web stream during voting in all polling booths, installation of jammers in the strong rooms and counting centres where the EVMs will be stored and also counting of at least 50% of VVPATs simultaneously.

In a representation to the Election Commission, DMK propaganda secretary Tiruchi Siva said the life span of EVMs is only 15 years as per information in the public domain. The EVMs manufactured by BEL and ECIL have been in use since 2001 in all the elections across the country. Mr. Siva said there is a fear of tampering these EVMs and manipulation of recorded data by hacking with latest technology. He said Western countries and those with advanced technology do not prefer electronic voting and use only ballot papers.

“In order to dispel the fear from the mind of the people and to infuse confidence among the electorate, it is requested to utililse the EVMs which were manufactured recently which would possess latest technical and security updates and therefore would be less susceptible to hackers, or attacks of any kind of malfunctioning,” he said.

The party also sought counting of 50% of VVPATs simultaneously along with the EVMs in order to have a fool-proof method of declaration of results. This will instill confidence in the minds of the people about the genuineness in the recording of votes, he said.

Also, every table in the counting centre should have CCTV coverage instead of one for many tables, high-powered signal jammers must be provided in polling stations, strong rooms and counting centres, must be provided, the DMK said.