Nagpur: The Election Department has made elaborate arrangements for the forthcoming Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) elections, with 3,004 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) set to be deployed across the city, officials said. This includes 300 reserve EVMs, kept aside to handle any technical glitches or unforeseen contingencies during polling.
Election officials said the civic administration routinely maintains nearly 10 per cent additional EVMs over the actual requirement to ensure that polling proceeds smoothly without interruption. They added that in previous municipal elections, the availability of standby machines has ensured that there has never been a shortage of EVMs on polling day.
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09 Jan 2026
The machines to be used are the same standard EVMs deployed in Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, with one key difference — Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units will not be used for the civic polls. As a result, voters will not receive a paper slip after casting their vote. Each voting unit will comprise a ballot unit (BU) displaying the candidates’ names and symbols, and a control unit (CU) that securely records the votes electronically.
Officials explained that the number of EVMs allocated to each ward depends on the number of candidates in the fray. Since a single ballot unit can accommodate up to 15 candidates, additional ballot units are provided in wards where the contest exceeds this limit. In the event of a malfunction, the faulty machine is immediately replaced with a reserve EVM to avoid any delay in voting.
Assuring voters about the integrity of the process, officials said there is no possibility of votes being lost due to EVM replacement or technical failure. All machines are kept in highly secured strong rooms under continuous CCTV surveillance and multiple layers of security, both before and after polling. These safeguards, they said, eliminate any scope for tampering and ensure the sanctity of the electoral process.
