Kathmandu, April 10:

Many voters registered at polling booths in Kathmandu-1 said Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), introduced for the first time in the country, drew them to the booths. They said they could not resist the urge to vote through EVMs for the first time. But there was a downside to the introduction of EVMs: Senior citizens and illiterates said these machines only confounded them.

Many voters told this daily that the prospect of voting through EVMs excited them. Rabi Bhupal Pradhan was one of them. “The new voting technology encouraged me to vote,” Pradhan, 33-year-old college teacher, said in Minbhawan.

He said electronic voting machines were easy to use.

Chief returning officer at Kathmandu-1 Narayan Dahal said the introduction of EVMs was successful. Only a polling station at Dillibazaar-based Padma Kanya School saw a 30-minute halt in voting as a voter pulled off electric wire of an EVM.

“People were excited to vote through EVMs. Moreover, EVMs made polling easier and faster,” he added. From 7 AM till 10 AM, queues were shorter in polling stations in Kathmandu-1.

After 10 AM, people didn’t have to wait to cast votes as the number of voters dwindled further.

An elderly woman at the Milan Vidhya Mandir voting booth was searching for the ballot box to cast her identification slip thinking that that was the ballot. But following the instruction of the election officer, she pressed the button. She was confounded.

Election officers there said a few voters went out without pressing the button of the EVM.

One female voter at the booth said the system was confusing for senior citizens.

A few senior citizens at the booth in Indrayeni Primary School in Kirtipur marked ballots with thumb-prints instead of stamping it with a marker with swastika symbol, an eyewitness said.

INSET: Polling was peaceful in all 15 constituencies of the Kathmandu Valley. Efforts to contact returning officers of all 15 constituencies failed. Narayan Dahal, chief returning officer at Kathmandu-1, said polling has not been cancelled in any stations in the valley. “Voter turnout was 60-65 per cent,” he said.

Many voters turned up at polling stations in the valley early in the morning.

All voters interviewed by this daily said they wanted to cast their votes early in the morning, fearing untoward incidents in the afternoon.

“I wanted to cast my vote early in the morning because anything can happen in the country as violence has been reported everywhere,” said Radha Dhungana at Bhaktapur.

“Fifty per cent of voters turned up at the booths from 7 am to 9 am. There was no crowd in the afternoon in most of the polling booths in the valley,” polling officer Krishna Prasad Basyal said.