Not a single case of VVPAT mismatch: EC

New Delhi, May 25

All the 20,625 electronic voting machines (EVMs) in 4,129 Assembly constituencies have been matched with the corresponding voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) slip count and no discrepancy has been found, a senior Election Commission official said today.

 A day prior to counting, 22 Opposition parties had questioned the credibility of voting machines and demanded that voter slips be counted first. This was rejected by the Election Commission. The official said the mismatch at one polling station in Andhra Pradesh was seemingly owing to human error.

“The most common human error leading to VVPAT mismatch is when a poll officer forgets to clear the mock poll date before the voting begins. The commission will ascertain the reason for the error in Andhra Pradesh soon,” he explained. 

This is the first Lok Sabha election with VVPAT units. The Supreme Court in an order on April 8 had directed the EC to compulsorily verify VVPAT slips with the EVM count in at least five polling stations of every Assembly segment. As many as 22.3 lakh ballot units, 16.3 lakh control units and 17.3 lakh VVPATs were used. 

A day before the results, the Opposition had submitted a memorandum requesting that all VVPAT slips be counted in case of any mismatch. The EC rejected it. — TNS