New Delhi | Ten candidates who unsuccessfully contested last year's Maharashtra Assembly polls had applied for EVM checking and verification, and the machines were found to be flawless, the Election Commission (EC) said on Thursday.

The candidates had applied for checking and verifying the EVMs -- ballot units, control units and paper trail machines. The exercise was carried out across 10 Assembly constituencies "and in all cases, the machines passed the diagnostic tests and no mismatch was found in the count of VVPAT slips", the poll panel said.

"This exercise proves, yet again, that the EVMs are tamper-proof," it added.

The test was held on 48 ballot units, 31 control units and 31 paper-trail machines used during polling in the 10 constituencies.

Authorised engineers from the manufacturer (ECIL) certified that all machines passed the diagnostic tests.

The Supreme Court added a new layer of transparency last year to enhance the acceptability of electronic voting machines (EVMs), the use of which was facing opposition from some quarters, by accepting an EC plan to examine and certify that there was no tampering of the burnt memory and software of the machines in case of disputes.

The EC had then come out with a procedure for candidates to apply for a burnt-memory check.