For the first time in the country, Electronic Voting Machines, EVM's, to be used in local elections in Maharashtra on April 10, 2005, will allow voters to not vote for any candidate.

Even as the supreme court decides on a petition demanding additional facilities on EVM's to log no-votes - or what is popularly called "protest" vote - the Maharashtra state election commission is going ahead with the use of a novel feature that will allow no-voting, spurred on not so much by sympathy for the "protesting" voter but as a practical necessity.

The facility will be available to voters who go to the polls on April 10, 2005 in the two municipal corporations of Navi Mumbai and Aurangabad, and the five municipal councils of Manikpur, Nallasopara, Badlapur, Ambernath, and Mowad.

Though of the same stock as EVM's used in last year's general and assembly elections, the EVM's for these local elections have been modified in some ways. An "end" key, says election commissioner Nandlal, has been added to ensure that the machine gets reactivated for the next voter even if the previous voter does not fully exercise his franchise. "In local elections there are multiple posts to be voted in one poll. So we have modified the balloting unit to permit voting for two to three candidates at on go," he said. For instance, voters in a municipal council can cast their vote for a councillor and the president of the council on the same unit.

However, if a voter does not wish to vote for either one of the two posts, he can press the "end" button to terminate the voting process after casting one vote.