Candidates seeking review of the voting process have several options from the Election Commission.

Candidates who have applied for a re-examination of the voting process for the recently concluded Lok Sabha and state assembly elections can choose from several options provided by the Election Commission, including opting for Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) from any polling station in their state assembly district or opting for mock voting and virtual ballot paper audit trail (VVPAT) vote counting.

The commission released the technical standard operating procedures (SOPs) on Tuesday.

Eleven candidates have applied for memory verification of EVMs and VVPATs, a demand that essentially means a re-collation of votes cast in 5% of the EVMs in each constituency.

This is the first time the reassessment is being conducted following the Supreme Court’s April 24 order allowing verification at the request of the runner-up in any election.

The SOPs issued by the commission for checking and verifying the burn-in memory of EVMs have been sent to Election Commissions of all states, the commission said in a statement. The procedure allows candidates to choose from multiple options, the commission said.

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“The ‘randomness’ and ‘voluminosity’ of test vectors, and the expanded selection-based approach in lieu of a controlled environment C&V process of burned-in memory, eliminates the possibility and concerns of bias or hidden features in the firmware by demonstrating the intended results at every stage of the C&V process under candidate-selected parameters,” the committee said.

As per the new SOPs, eligible candidates can choose any polling station or voting machine serial number in an assembly segment or constituency, subject to a maximum of 5% of the EVMs used in that constituency.

Candidates can also select any combination of EVM units from any polling station in their Assembly constituency.

Apart from this, all EVM units perform self-diagnosis at ‘power on’. When EVM units are connected with each other, mutual authentication takes place. “The mutual authentication process ensures that no counterfeit or unauthorized units are connected to the ECI-EVM at any stage,” the committee said.

Candidates can choose any order or pattern to cast any number of votes in the mock polls, but the maximum number of votes will be limited to 1,400.

The complete checking and verification process will be carried out under CCTV surveillance and will be videotaped.