Referring to Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and ballots, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Habibul Awal said, “I have my own experience over ballots; How the polling station was occupied and filled boxes with sealing two or three hundred ballots in one hour. You could not stop it. If there is something wrong with EVMs, though I am not an EVM expert. What I have seen there is much positive things.”

CEC said this after holding a meeting with delegates of political parties over EVMs on Tuesday (June 21).

He said, “If you depend on us, the election will not be held in fair manners. You have much responsibility. You stay in fields. How many centers I would visit as a CEC? We will try to deploy police, BGB and things like that. You still have doubts in EVMs.”

He further said, “The polls have recently been held, we could not any allegation over misuse of EVMs. You watched on TV some people could not match their finger prints, but later they matched after they washed their hands. There may by some problems in machines. One may cast 100 votes with ballots, but if someone cannot match finger print, it is impossible to franchise the vote.”

Kazi Habibul Awal said, “We arranged today’s discussion as you cannot have fully confidence on EVMs. We called some 13 parties today. We also called 13 other parties earlier, but they all might not attended the discussion, some nine-10 parties joined the discussion. We know you are still in doubts over EVMs. We are hearing your opinions and trying to evaluate that. 13 others parties will come to discuss the matter. We will exchange our views with them. We have yet not taken any final decision, will not take it without discussion with political parties. For this, we took the process. We will make analysis your opinions and we have the scope.” He said, “There are 39 registered political parties. We have invited all of them. We will work with 100 percent honesty from our side. We will not work as obedient of the government and I think the government will also not want that.