Mumbai, Sep 11 (PTI) The number of voters in Maharashtra has gone up by over 8 lakh since the Lok Sabha elections held earlier this year, State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Baldev Singh said on Wednesday.

After the revision of electoral rolls, the total number of voters in the state as on August 31 is 8,94,46,211, he said.

Asserting that EVMs are "tamper-free", Singh said the Election Commission (EC) will launch an awareness campaign against the "misinformation" about these machines.

"As per the July 15 electoral rolls, the number of voters in the state was 8,85,86,961, of whom 4,63,27,241 were males and 4,22,57,193 were females. There were 2,527 transgender voters," Singh said in a press conference here.

"Now, after the summary revision as on August 31, the total number of voters is 8,94,46,211. The increase in the number of voters was 10,75,528, but the names of 2,16,278 voters were struck off the voters' list. This means the net increase in the voters' list is 8,59,250," he said.

"There is an increase of around 16 per cent in the age group of 18 to 19 years," he said.

Of the total 8.94 crore voters, 4,67,37,841 are men and 4,27,05,777 are women. The male-female ratio as per the electoral rolls is 914:1000, while as per the population census the ratio is 925:1000,

"There is a gap and we are working to improve it," he said.

Singh said the voters have a chance to register themselves in the electoral rolls up to 10 days before the nomination process begins.

The CEO added that preparations are underway to ensure that the state elections are conducted in a free, fair and transparent manner.

According to him, the number of polling stations has gone up by 4,144 since the 2014 assembly polls.

The First Level Checks (FLCs) of EVMs are completed and the training of returning officers, district-level officials is in progress, He said.

"EVMs are tamper-free with the highest security protocol. We are launching an awareness campaign that misinformation about EVMs is not true," he said.

When asked about the election preparations in the flood-hit districts of Sangli and Kolhapur, Singh said the EC was in touch with the divisional commissioners and collectors of the two districts and Epic (electoral photo identity card) cards, if lost in the floods, were being distributed free-of- cost.

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