Bengaluru, April 26: Under fire from a section of politicians who have alleged "EVM rigging" in various elections held over the past 12 months, the Election Commission announced that it would be conducting the Karnataka assembly polls 2018 using the 'tamper-proof' Mark-3 EVMs.

The updated version of the electronic voting machines have been manufactured by the government-owned Electronic Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL). Karnataka would be the first state where the Mark-3 EVMs will be put to use.

What are the Mark-3 EVMs?

The Mark-3 EVMs are the latest in the series of electronic voting machines used by the Commission for conducting the elections. In the polls conducted using EVMs in the past 8 years, the Mark-2 machines were used.

The characteristics of Mark-3 EVMs are likely to put to rest the apprehension raised by a section of Opposition leaders.

In order to prevent the reprogramming of the machine, the chip used in Mark-3 EVMs will read the first programme as the final programme.

The new machine is also equipped to detect the attempts of manipulation. In case if the machine is attempted to be opened -- using a screw or dismantling of any of its parts -- it will automatically shutdown itself.

The Mark-3 EVMs prevents any networking device to connect with the machine. In the UP assembly polls held last year, the Opposition had alleged the machines were connected with bluetooth device in a bid to rig them. In the Mark-3 EVMs, the internet feature is disabled. This would prevent the machine from being attacked by malwares, bugs or other forms of virus.

The Mark-3 EVMs are also equipped to handle 24 ballot units with 384 candidates, as compared to the Mark-2 machines which had the capacity of accomodating only four ballot units with 64 candidates.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 26, 2018 08:24 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).