Today 1st April, The Supreme Court issued a notice to the Election Commission of India (ECI) in response to a petition urging for the cross-verification of all Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) votes with Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips, as well as the physical deposit of VVPAT slips into a designated ballot box.
The Supreme Court of India today requested the Election Commission of India (ECI) to respond to a plea aiming for a comprehensive count of Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips during elections.
Currently, VVPAT verification only covers votes recorded in 5 randomly chosen Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) per assembly segment.
The petitioner advocates for matching every EVM vote with its corresponding VVPAT slip and allowing voters to physically deposit VVPAT slips in a ballot box to ensure accurate ballot counting.
Justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta have issued the notice to the ECI and grouped the plea with other pending cases concerning EVM and VVPAT.
The plea, filed by lawyer and activist Arun Kumar Agrawal, challenges the Election Commission’s guideline of conducting sequential VVPAT verification, which leads to unnecessary delays.
The argument made in the plea suggests that if simultaneous verification is carried out and more officers are deployed for counting in every assembly constituency, it would allow for thorough VVPAT verification to be completed within 5-6 hours.
The plea stated,
“Furthermore, the petitioner aims to annul and revoke Guideline No. 14.7(h) of the Manual on Electronic Voting Machine and VVPAT dated August, 2023, as formulated and issued by the Election Commission of India, specifically concerning its provision for solely sequential verification of VVPAT slips, which leads to unwarranted delays in the tallying of all VVPAT slips.”
The petition also argued that despite the government spending nearly ₹5,000 crores on purchasing nearly 24 lakh VVPATs, only around 20,000 VVPAT slips are verified.
Given the numerous concerns raised by experts about VVPATs and EVMs, along with significant reported discrepancies between EVM and VVPAT vote counts in the past, it is crucial that all VVPAT slips are carefully counted, according to the petitioner.
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Furthermore, the plea stated that voters should have the chance to ensure their EVM votes are accurately recorded by allowing them to physically place their VVPAT slips in a ballot box.
The matter of matching VVPAT slips with EVMs been the subject of extensive debate. Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, leaders of approximately 21 opposition parties approached the Supreme Court, requesting VVPAT verification for at least 50 percent of all EVMs.
At one time, the ECI used to match only one random EVM per assembly segment with VVPAT.
On April 8, 2019, the Supreme Court increased this number from 1 to 5 and resolved the petition.
In May 2019, the Court rejected a petition filed by some technocrats who requested VVPAT verification for all EVMs.
Last July, the Supreme Court commented that some Public interest litigations (PILs) regarding election procedures in the country overly questioned the integrity of the election process. The Court considering a petition by the Association for Democratic Reforms to match VVPAT slips with votes cast via EVMs.
This petition is currently pending before the Court.