SC rejects pleas for 100% cross-verification of EVM votes with VVPAT
On April 26, the Supreme Court dismissed petitions seeking cross-verification of votes from electronic voting machines (EVMs) with voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT). Instead, the court suggested the use of electronic machines for counting votes and the inclusion of barcodes on voting slips.
Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta delivered the verdict after initially reserving orders on April 18 and seeking technical clarifications from the Election Commission on April 24. Both judges authored separate but concurring judgments.
Justice Khanna stated in court that prayers for reverting to ballot paper voting, complete EVM-VVPAT verification, giving VVPAT slips to voters and revisiting Rule 49MA of the Conduct of Election Rules were rejected after considering the existing protocol, technical aspects and available data.
However, the court issued two directives:
(1) Sealing and securing the symbol loading unit (SLU) containers after the symbol-loading process in the EVM, to be kept in strong rooms with the EVMs for at least 45 days after the declaration of results
(2) Checking and verifying the burnt memory semicontroller in 5 per cent of the EVMs, including the control unit, ballot unit and VVPAT, per assembly segment of the parliamentary constituency, upon written request by candidates, with expenses to be borne by the requesting candidate and refunded if tampering is found.
