The decision to conduct electronic voting in Chandigarh was conveyed to the Chandigarh Administration by the Election Commission recently. Even though Chandigarh has issued Voter Identity cards to over 70 per cent of the electorate, electronic voting would be held all over the constituency.

For this, Chandigarh would soon get more electronic voting machines. Though electronic machines are already available with the Union Territory Administration, another 500 such machines are likely to be arranged from other parts of the country.

The Election Commission of India would also conduct an exercise to train the staff for the proper usage of such machines sometime later. The decision to use these machines in Chandigarh for the forthcoming Parliamentary polls was taken by the Election Commission following their successful use in the recently concluded Assembly elections in Goa and other places.

The experiment for use of electronic voting machines in Chandigarh is part of the Election Commission's move to make the process of electioneering more hi-tech.

The electronic voting machine has two parts, one which is used for voting by the voter, and the other is the control unit for use by officials of the Election Department.

Officials hope that with the introduction of electronic voting, polling would become transparent, free from any malpractices, and it will also help in faster compilation of results.