Election Commission to display full‑colour photos of candidates on EVMs under revised guidelines

New Delhi (The Uttam Hindu) : The Election Commission of India issued a press release on Wednesday stating that color photographs of candidates will now be printed on EVM ballot papers. This means that EVMs will now include color photographs of candidates along with their names and election symbols.

According to the Election Commission, this is going to start with the Bihar Assembly elections. The Commission says that voters often get confused due to candidates having the same name. To solve this problem, now a color photograph of the contesting candidate will also be put on the EVM, so that voters can correctly identify their favorite candidate and vote for him. Apart from this, the serial number of all the candidates and NOTA will also be printed in bold font on the EVM. Its font size will be 30. Also, the names of all the candidates and NOTA will be printed in the same font and font size, so that it is easy for the voters to read them.

The Election Commission has also set a standard weight for EVM ballot papers. These papers will be 70 GSM. Special pink paper will be used for assembly elections. The Election Commission is implementing all these changes with the upcoming Bihar assembly elections. This process will be followed in all subsequent elections. In fact, it is often seen that multiple candidates with the same name contest elections. This creates confusion among voters. Sometimes, voters mistakenly vote for a candidate with a similar name. To address this problem, the Election Commission has decided to print color photographs of candidates on EVMs. This will ensure that voters can cast their votes correctly by seeing their candidate's name and election symbol, as well as their face.