The election commission is in a mess with its Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) project. This constitutional organisation is at a loss and can’t decide on what to do now.
As reported in Prothom Alo, the election commission had bought 150,000 (1.5 lakh) EVMs in 2018. The project under which these machines were purchased, is about to expire next June. And there’s no funding in the project for the maintenance of the EVMs either.
These machines were supposed to have a life span of 10 years. However, more than 100,000 (1 lakh) EVMs have gone out of order within just five years.
Concerned persons say that the EC had hurriedly taken up a ‘flawed’ project before the 11th Jatiya Sangsad election to purchase EVMs at a cost of Tk 38.25 billion (Tk 3,825 crore).
Even the recommendation of the technical committee formed with Jamilur Reza Chowdhury in the lead wasn’t followed in this case. The technical committee had recommended the inclusion of Voter Variable Paper Audit Trail or VVPAT (after voting on the machine it will come out being printed on a paper) on the EVM.
The election commission led by Kazi Habibul Awal had decided to use EVM in maximum 150 seats in the 12th national parliament election. However, as no new project was approved amid the economic crisis, the EVM was not eventually used in any of the constituencies.
After 2018, EVMs were used in various parliamentary by-elections and local government elections. Meanwhile, EVMs are supposed to be used in nine districts for the upazila polls this time.
The EC was supplied by these EVMs by Bangladesh Machine Tools factory limited (BMTF). In February last year, the agency had informed EC that almost 40,000 EVMs have gone out of order while the remaining 110,000 (1.1 lakh) also needed repairing. And, this would cost Tk 12.60 billion (Tk 1,260 crore).
As many as 60,000 EVMs going out of order within just 14 months is indeed very unusual. If this trend continues, the commission might not need to write letters to the government for advice any longer.
Election commissioner Md Alamgir has also admitted that the way the project was planned during the tenure of the previous election commission, was faulty. The project didn’t even have allocation for staff to operate the EVMs or to repair and maintain these machines.
EVMs were introduced to make the election more transparent and fair. But what’s the condition of that election. There have been two national parliament elections since the launch of EVMs, about which there are lots of debates. How can an election, be it on ballots or on EVMs, be fair and transparent where there’s no competition?
Why was a machine purchased for almost Tk 235,000 (Tk 2.35 lakh) in Bangladesh whereas it cost Tk 22,000 in India? Though there was strong objection and protest against this, the KM Nurul Huda commission didn’t take it into consideration.
The Huda commission can blame the liabilities of failing to hold a credible election onto the political leadership. But, how will they evade the responsibilities for buying faulty EVMs of the lowest quality? An organisation cannot do whatever it wants just for being constitutional. Those who wasted public tax money in the name of buying EVMs must be held accountable.
The current commission inherited the EVMs. If they don’t conduct a fair and credible investigation into the matter, they too will have to bear the liabilities of their predecessors' wrongdoings.