SC reserves verdict on EVM-VVPAT tallying, says can’t suspect everything

Tribune News Service

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, April 18

“Everything can’t be suspected,” the Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday told petitioners seeking 100 per cent cross-verification of votes cast through EVMs with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) as it reserved its verdict on the contentious issue.

Appreciate the good

You can't be critical of everything....Please also appreciate if they have done something good. We heard you because we are also concerned. The SC

“Now you’re going too far. Everything can’t be suspected. You can’t be critical of everything....Please also appreciate if they have done something good. We heard you because we are also concerned,” a Bench of Justice Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta told advocate Prashant Bhushan, who represented petitioner Association for Democratic Rights (ADR).

VVPAT is an independent vote verification system which enables an elector to see whether his vote has been cast correctly. It generates a paper slip which can be viewed by the voter. It is kept in a sealed cover and can be opened in case of a dispute.

The petitioners — ADR and others — have demanded a 100 per cent count of VVPAT slips as opposed to the current practice of verification of only five randomly selected EVMs per assembly segment through VVPAT paper slips. They have sought measures to ensure that votes are “recorded as cast” and “counted as recorded”. They have also sought reversal of the EC’s 2017 decision to replace the transparent glass on VVPAT machines with an opaque glass through which a voter can see the slip only when the light is on for seven seconds.

On Thursday, Bhushan said as the first phase of polling in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was just a day away, the easiest thing for the poll panel to do was to let the light in the VVPAT screen remain lit throughout the voting time as opposed to seven seconds allowed in the present system, so that the voter could see the slip cutting and falling.

Citing some media reports, Bhushan alleged that an EVM showed an extra vote during a mock poll in Kerala’s Kasaragod.

However, the EC termed the said reports “false”. “These news reports are false. We have verified the allegation from the district collector and it appears that they are false. We will submit a detailed report to the court,” senior Deputy Election Commissioner Nitesh Kumar Vyas told the Bench.

On behalf of the Election Commission, senior counsel Manindar Singh defended the process followed by it for conducting elections through EVMs. The EC asserted that it has matched EVM votes with more than four crore VVPAT slips and no mismatch has been found so far.

However, senior counsel Sankaranarayanan objected to the EC’s claim, saying, “Their own document shows that there is a mismatch ... There is at least one instance of mismatch. Let’s not say there is no mismatch.”

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