- Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the schedule for the General Election to Legislative Assemblies of Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal and bye-elections in 6 states on March 15,2026.
- EVMs are allotted to their respective polling stations through a 2-stage randomisation process. In the first stage, EVMs are randomly allocated from District level warehouses to the Assembly Constituencies. In the second stage, EVMs are randomly allocated from the AC level to the polling station level.
- As per the directions of the Election Commission of India (ECI), the District Election Officers (DEO) of all the poll-bound States/UTs must complete the first randomization of EVM-VVPATs which have passed the First Level Checking (FLC).
- First randomisation of EVMs has accordingly been completed for the general elections of the states of Assam and Kerala and the UT of Puducherry as well as for the bye-elections in the States of Goa, Karnataka, Nagaland and Tripura, which are going to polls on April 9, 2026.
- The First Randomization was done through EVM Management System (EMS) by the DEOs in the presence of the representatives of National and State Recognised Political Parties.
- Constituency wise lists of randomized EVMs and VVPATs have been shared with the representatives of all National and State Recognised Political Parties at their respective district headquarters.
- These EVMs and VVPATs will be stored in respective Assembly Strong Room in the presence of the representatives of National and State Recognised Political Parties.
- After finalization of list of contesting candidates, the list of first and second randomized EVMs and VVPATs will be shared with all the contesting candidates also.
