Today, Supreme Court will hold hearing on 100% VVPAT slip matching ballots

Currently, the VVPAT tickets of 5 EVMs in one assembly constituency have been verified.Representative

New Delhi:

The Supreme Court will today hear a petition seeking cross-validation of votes cast by matching electronic voting machine (EVM) votes with VVPAT slips. A few days are left for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the first phase of which will begin on Friday.

VVPAT (Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail) enables a voter to see if the vote was cast correctly and for the candidate he/she supported. VVPAT generates a note that is kept in a sealed lid and can be opened in case of dispute. The petition calls for cross-validation of every vote, amid questions and concerns raised by the opposition about the EVM voting system.

Under the current system, the VVPAT slips of five randomly selected EVMs in each assembly constituency or each assembly segment of the parliamentary constituency are physically verified.

The petition was filed by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and activist Arun Kumar Agarwal. Mr. Agarwal has asked for an inventory of all VVPAT slips. On April 1, the court had sought a reply from the Election Commission of India and the Center on his petition.

ADR’s petition seeks directions from the court to the Election Commission and the Center to ensure that voters can verify through VVPAT that their votes have been “counted into record”. The petition states that the requirement of a voter to verify that his or her vote has been “recorded as a vote” is satisfied when the VVPAT single bar is displayed for about seven seconds after pressing the button on the EVM through a transparent window.

“However, there is a complete vacuum in the law as the ECI does not provide any process for the elector to verify whether her vote has been ‘counted into record’, which is an integral part of the elector’s verifiability. The ECI failed to provide what this court found in …the same is true for the intent and purpose of the directions issued in Subramanian Swamy v. Election Commission of India (2013 Judgment),” contended the plea.

The issue first arose in 2009 when BJP leader Subramanian Swamy approached the Delhi High Court after his party lost the general election. Mr. Swamy sought directions to include a paper recording system in EVMs to certify that voters’ votes for a particular candidate have been correctly recorded. The High Court dismissed the petition and Mr Swamy approached the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said in its 2013 judgment that “it is satisfied that a ‘paper trail’ is an indispensable requirement for free and fair elections”.

“Only the introduction of a ‘paper trail’ can enhance voters’ confidence in EVMs. EVMs with VVPAT system ensures the accuracy of the voting system. The aim is to have maximum transparency in the system and restore confidence to voters. It is necessary to establish a There is EVM with VVPAT system because voting is nothing but an act of expression and has extremely important significance in a democratic system.”

Responding to a petition seeking VVPAT verification of all votes, the poll body pointed to manpower and infrastructure challenges and argued that this step would delay the counting process.