Bihar Assembly Elections has become national headlines seeing the political power play in action. The election will be held in three phases, on October 28, November 3 and 7. Leading up to the election, rallies are underway in full force. Even the biggest national political leaders are engaging in a war of words as election date nears. From JP Nadda to Rahul Gandhi and Amit Shah to Chidambaram, we've seen fierce verbal combat between the political leaders of opposite parties.

The Congress and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) released their respective manifestos for the Bihar Assembly elections Wednesday. BJP's manifesto will be launched on Thursday. Amidst all this chaos, it is important for voters to understand how to cast their vote in the right manner as every vote matters.

EVM, VVPAT

How to cast vote using EVM, VVPAT machines?

Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) were introduced in 1982 and have been in use since to conduct both general and assembly elections. The Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), a later addition to the EVMs, provides a visual verification to the voter after the vote is cast.

Here's a complete guide on how to cast your vote using Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) during Bihar Assembly Elections.

The EVM has two parts - a control unit with the polling officer and a balloting unit inside the voting compartment for voters to record their votes.

Bihar Election 2020: How to vote using EVM, VVPAT machines | Explained

The polling officer releases a ballot through the Control Unit. The voter can then press the blue button on the machine against the candidate and symbol of the party.

The VVPAT system attached to the EVM generates a paper slip and displays it for 7 seconds. This verifies if the vote is cast properly before the slip drops into a sealed box.

After polling when the votes are counted, the printed VVPAT slips from 5 randomly selected polling stations in each Assembly Constituency are matched against the EVM results. The final result for the constituency is declared after the VVPAT matching process is completed.

If there is any discrepancy between the VVPAT and EVM results, the printed paper slips are counted as final.