Ahead of the Assembly election to be held in Tamil Nadu on April 23, 2026 the commissioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units for all constituencies began on Thursday (April 16), in the presence of candidates or their authorised representatives, as well as general observers, the Election Commission of India (ECI) said.

“[The] Commissioning will be followed by a mock poll of 1,000 votes in 5% of the EVMs randomly selected by the candidates or their representatives. They will also be allowed to do the mock polls themselves,” an official release said.

Before commissioning, the EVMs were allotted to their respective polling stations through a two-stage randomisation process. In the first stage, EVMs were randomly allocated from District-level warehouses to the Assembly constituencies. In the second stage, EVMs were randomly allocated from the AC level to the polling station level.

The constituency-wise lists of first randomised EVMs and VVPAT units were shared with the representatives of all national and State recognised political parties at the respective district headquarters.