Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Goa conducted an awareness cum demo program for the Political Parties, District Election Officer, Returning Officer (RO) /Asst Returning Officer (ARO) and Members of Media on Pre- First Level Checking (P-FLC) of M3 Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) by Pre First Level Checking Unit (PFLCU) at Altinho Panaji today.
The Chief Electoral Officer Shri Kunal, IAS, Additional Chief Electoral Officer Shri Narayan Sawant, IAS, Jt. Chief Electoral Officer Smt Aisha Vaingankar, Smt Ruchika Katyal, IAS DEO, South District, Ms Mamu Hage, IAS, Addl Collector North, Dy. CEO Smt Sangeeta Naik were present on the occasion.
Chief Electoral Officer Shri Kunal IAS informed that the use of the Pre – First Level Checking Unit (P-FLCU) would be taking place for the first time in Goa and Manipur in the upcoming general elections. Pre First Level Checking Unit (P-FLCU) is an accessory unit designed to test EVM units like Control Unit (CU), Ballot Unit (BU) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) prior to the conduct of First Level Checks on pilot basis. It is used to capture diagnostic data from EVM/VVPAT units and to set the Real-Time Clock Data of CU. After checking by PFLCU, the entire process of First Level Checking (FLC) of EVM/VVPAT will occur.
The demonstration and briefing were presented by Engineers of Bharat Electronics Limited Ms Arshiya Khatoon and Mr A Vamsi Krisha. They also highlighted various features of M3 EVM/VVPAT machines.
The General Election to Goa Legislative Assembly will be conducted on M3 EVM/VVPATs. M3 EVMs have all the technical security features of the earlier models. They have additional advanced technical features like UADM(Unauthorised Access Detection Module), Self Diagnostics for EVM’s Health, Strong mutual authentication of CU, BU and VVPAT, Battery Life Prediction, Catering 24 BUs with single CU to accommodate 384 candidates, etc. Apart from the above advanced features, these are sleeker and light in weight, enabling ease of handling by the election personnel.