Following the national elections, the AMM Nasir Uddin-led Election Commission has now opted to scrap the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in local government polls as well.
The commission took the decision after issuing polls guidelines titled “Polling Station Setup and Management Guidelines-2025 for Local Government Institution Elections”.
The guidelines were officially gazetted on June 26 but made public by the commission on July 3.
In the 2023 version of the guidelines, there was a provision for setting up separate voting rooms for EVM-based voting.
That provision has been removed in this year’s guidelines. As a result, there will be no polling centres designated for EVMs in local government elections.
Before the 2018 national election, the EC hastily purchased 150,000 EVMs. Within just five years, around 120,000 of those machines became unusable.
When the EC later proposed a new project for repairing them, the then government rejected it.
Even after attempting to extend the project without fresh funding, the government declined without formally notifying the EC.
Consequently, the commission scrapped the EVM project earlier this year.
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is already conducting an investigation into irregularities involving EVMs and has summoned EC officials to hear their statements.
Amid these developments, the Election Commission recently excluded EVMs from the legal framework for parliamentary elections.
Now, the same decision has been extended to local government polls – despite initial plans to use EVMs on a limited scale in those elections.
Meanwhile, similar to the national elections, the Election Commission has also reduced the authority of District Commissioners (DCs) and Superintendents of Police (SPs) in setting up polling centres for local government elections, shifting more power to its own officials.
The new guidelines also have dropped the committees previously led by DCs and UNOs from the polling centre setup process, while most other rules remain intact.