Introduction of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) in the elections to different national and local government has increased the cost by about 29 to 75 percent compared to manual voting in ballot papers.
Officials concerned of the Election Commission (EC) said voting through EVM machines is costing additional Tk 1,49,16,300 to introduce EVM system in each of the constituencies, which is 29 percent more compared to the ballot papers. Accordingly, voting through the EVM to a single municipality is costing additional Tk 24,66,300, which is 75.49 more than the voting through ballot papers.
Besides, election using EVM to a single Union Parishad is costing additional Tk 16,52,500 or 51.54 percent compared to the ballot papers.
EC officials said cost in the elections to different city corporations, upazila parishads and district councils has also increased for introduction of EVMs.
It should be mentioned that the EC as well as the government want to increase the usage of EVMs in a bid to prevent vote rigging and other irregularities. Although there are many questions over the usage of EVMs in the voting, the EC has decided to use EVM in the elections to 25 municipalities in the first phase and 29 in the second phase.
However, the EC authorities are yet to decide about the usage of EVMs in the elections to different municipalities in the third and fourth phases.
According to sources, the EC proposed for a fund of Tk 1,414.9 crore for vote related training of election commission officials, employees and volunteers.
The Election Commissioner Brigadier General (retd) Shahadat Hossain Chowdhury, also the chief of the Committee on Application of Information Technology in Election Management, said that the use of EVMs is being increased to prevent election irregularities.
“However, it is true that it has increased the cost of hold each election,” he said and continued as saying that highest amount of money is being spent for the training purpose. He, however, believes that the cost of covering elections through EVM would eventually reduce.
He said, “To reduce the cost, at first, teachers, BNCC men and volunteers will be trained first so that they could share their knowledge and make people aware of the EVM usage.”
Some critics nevertheless alleged that additional money ultimately is going to the pockets of the election officials in the name of training.
Many EC officials are more willing to take part in training than fulfilling their responsibilities as they get extra money for training purpose.
According to EVM project sources, the EC has collected a total of 150,000 EVMs. The price of each EVM was Tk 2,05,000.
