New Delhi | The Election Commission has completed the first round of randomisation of electronic voting machines and paper trail devices to be used in the April 9 elections in Assam, Kerala and Puducherry.

To enhance transparency and confidence of political parties and voters, the poll authority randomly distributes electronic voting machines (EVMs) and voter-verifiable paper audit trails (VVPATs) to different constituencies in a poll-going state.

The EVMs are allotted to their respective polling stations through a two-stage randomisation process.

In the first stage, the EVMs are randomly allocated from district-level warehouses to the Assembly constituencies. In the second stage, the EVMs are randomly allocated from the Assembly level to the polling stations.

The Election Commission (EC) on Saturday said that randomisation has also been completed for the Assembly bypolls in Goa, Karnataka, Nagaland and Tripura, to be held on April 9.

The first randomisation was done using the EVM management system (EMS) by the district election officers in the presence of representatives from national and state-recognised political parties.

The list of the randomised EVMs has been shared with the political parties, the poll authority said