The Election Commission is planning to arrange fairs across the country to make Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) popular to the voters, EC Secretary Helal Uddin Ahmed said today.

“We will hold the fairs at 10 places across the country before the 11th parliamentary elections to make the EVM system popular to the people,” Helal Uddin said while talking to reporters at the EC Secretariat in Dhaka this noon.

The commission is planning to send at least two EVMs to each district across the country so that people can know the pros and cons of the electronic voting device, the EC secretary said.

To make the efforts a success, the EC will hold a fair in Dhaka by October, he added.

Responding to a query, Helal Uddin said the commission will use EVMs in all the local body elections in future and there is a plan to utilise the device in the upcoming general elections in small-scale.

The commission will reach a decision in this regard after holding talks with the stakeholders including the registered political parties, he said.

Elections to a total of 500 upazilas will be held by February next year and the commission is mulling the use of the EVMs in the elections, the EC secretary said.

Earlier in the day, the EC secretary inaugurated a training session of the field-level election officials at the EC office to use the electronic voting device in a transparent way.

Brig Gen Mohammed Saidul Islam, director general of the Election Training Institute, discussed many challenging factors of using the EVM including setting up of its connection at polling centres, detecting voters, and other related issues during the session.