Plea in SC seeks tallying EVM result with paper trail count

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the October 11 Gurdaspur Lok Sabha byelection, a petition filed in the Supreme Court has demanded that the entire paper trail from the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) of electronic voting machines (EVMs) should be counted and tallied for an authentic result.

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 23

Ahead of the October 11 Gurdaspur Lok Sabha byelection, a petition filed in the Supreme Court has demanded that the entire paper trail from the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) of electronic voting machines (EVMs) should be counted and tallied for an authentic result.

The VVPATs are EVMs with a paper trail. When a voter presses the button to choose a candidate of his/her choice, a slip of paper shows the party symbol of the candidate for a few seconds before it goes into a sealed box. In case an election result is questioned, VVPAT slips can be used to double-check the votes.

The petition filed by activist Sabu Stephen – a resident of Thiruvanathapuram (Kerala) — sought a direction to the Election Commission to compare the count of the paper trail with the EVM result, and if any difference was found, the paper trail count should be taken as the final result.

The results of this year’s Assembly elections in five states have been questioned by many political parties and leaders, including BSP’s Mayawati.

A bypoll is also being held for the Vengara Assembly seat in Kerala on October 11. Counting will take place on October 15.

“The plea is to enhance the trust in the minds of the citizens in the electoral process of the largest democratic country…,” the petition read.

“A voter has the right to know whether his/her vote has been recorded and counted. As of now, there is no proof and no accountability,” the petitioner submitted.

Deciding a PIL filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, the top court had earlier directed the Centre to provide financial assistance to the poll panel for introduction of the VVPAT system with EVMs to ensure “accuracy” in the voting system which could be used for manual counting of votes in case of a dispute.

“The paper trail is an indispensable requirement of free and fair elections. The confidence of voters in the EVMs can be achieved only with the introduction of the paper trail,” the SC had said.

“EVMs with the VVPAT system ensure the accuracy of the voting system,” the court had said.