Imphal, January 18: Fourteen election officers including the state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) were imparted training on the use of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) today.

The EVMs will be used for the first time in six valley Assembly constituencies.

The training was imparted at the Officers� Club at Lamphel from 10 am till 4 pm by a team of Election Commission of India officials led by its Secretary CR Brahmam.

DS Poonia, CEO, and his subordinate officials, two District Election Officers (Imphal West and East DCs), three Returning Officers (SDOs of Lamphel, Porompat and Sawombung) and four assistant Election Officers were given the training.

Fifteen Presiding Officers will also be given the same training tomorrow.

The Assembly constituencies where the EVMs will be used are Sagolband, Keishamthong, Thangmeiband, Khurai, Wangkhei and Yaiskul.

The ECI team also demonstrated how the machine is to be used in front of media persons today.

The machine has two units namely balloting and control unit.

The balloting unit features the names of candidates, symbols and a buttons for casting votes.

Votes can press the button placed alongside the name of the candidate of their choice to cast their votes.

This unit is connected to the control unit which will be handled by the Polling Officer.

As soon as the voter presses the button a beep signal indicating the vote has been casted would be emanate from the control and balloting unit.

Before the voters turn up for voting, election officials should set the names of the candidates, symbols and number of candidates on the control unit and the same should be sealed after appending their signatures.

The control unit has three buttons �Close�, �Clear� and �Result�.

These buttons are to be sealed by the officials concerned after signing.

Polling officials to press the �Close� button after the polling is over.

Once this button is pressed then further voting cannot take place on the ballot unit.

The �Clear� button is to erase the data from the memory chip of the control unit.

The �Result� button will reveal the votes secured by each candidate.

These two buttons will not be activated until the seal which was signed and closed is first removed.

As such these buttons will not be allowed to be touched until the counting actually starts.

One interesting feature of EVMs is the eradication of any chances of votes being rendered invalid.