TEAM HERALD
CANACONA: The Dhavalkhazan booth in Agonda witnessed anxious moments when the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) broke down, while a voter was given the election slip of another voter, resulting in some confusion at the polling booth.
According to reports, the EVM at the Dhavalkhazan booth functioned for barely an hour after voting began at 7 am, before it began to emit an unusual faint sound. The EVM then became erratic and finally stopped working completely, bringing the entire voting process to a grinding halt at the polling booth.
The polling officials then alerted Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) and Canacona Mamlatdar Ravishekhar Nippanikar, who rushed to the polling booth to take stock of the situation.
As efforts were made to get the EVM to restart, the queue began to increase at the polling booth.
Officials were, however, unable to get the EVM to restart and an officer from ARO sealed the faulty machine, before ordering for a different EVM.
By the time the faulty EVM was replaced with another EVM, about an hour was already lost in the poll process.
The same polling station witnessed another goof-up by polling officials, forcing the voters to stand in a queue for some more time.
Sources informed that poll officials collected the voters slip from one woman, but issued the election slip to another woman.
While the first woman was waiting for her election slip, the second woman was unaware that she had been handed over the election slip of the first woman and cast her vote, before walking out of the polling booth.
Sources informed that when the first woman insisted on casting her vote, it was revealed that a different woman had already cast the vote and had gone away.
The polling officials were seen rushing out and requested the second woman to return to the polling booth, before the matter was amicably resolved.
