Paper trail to be used in all future elections, says EC

All future elections will be held using voter verifiable paper audit trail or VVPAT machines, along with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), the Election Commission of India (EC) announced on Friday.

Chief Election Commissioner A.K. Joti on Friday told the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of states and Union Territories to develop extensive training programmes on VVPATs to prepare the electoral officers to use the paper trail machines, along with the EVMs.

The Commission is holding a two-day conference of CEOs here that started on Friday to "review performance as well as to explore new initiatives and improve election management and voter experience".

Joti also stressed on the need to provide e-services to stakeholders and the need to develop e-payment gateways for various election services of the EC. 

He said that systematic voter education and electoral participation (SVEEP) should be developed as a core area of election management.

Senior EC officials also participated in the conference and made presentations on pivotal issues like EVMs and VVPATs, electoral registration officers' net, electoral roll, SVEEP, expenditure monitoring, social media and paid news, among others.  - IANS