Chasing paper trails
Supreme Court puts VVPAT controversy to rest
As Indians queue up to vote in one million polling stations around the country, the Supreme Court has set at rest concerns about the credibility of electronic voting machines (EVMS). On the same day as the second phase of polling, the court delivered a verdict rejecting the plea by the non-profit organisation Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) for 100 per cent cross-verification of EVMS by a manually counted voter verifiable paper audit trail, or VVPAT. In separate but concurring judgments, the two-judge Bench chose to retain the current provisions of counting the VVPAT slips of five randomly selected Assembly constituencies or Assembly segments of Parliamentary constituencies to verify the EVM count. In addition, the court has directed the Election Commission to seal and store symbolloading units (SLUS) for 45 days after the election result is declared.
The SLU is a memory device that enables candidates’ symbols to be loaded on to the VVPAT machine; it is typically retained for a day before being handed back to the manufacturer to be programmed and reused in other VVPATS for subsequent phases. This directive implies that an SLU can be opened and examined in the event of an election petition. The Supreme Court has also allowed candidates standing second or third in a constituency to ask for a verification of EVM software by submitting a written request identifying the polling station or serial number within seven days of the results being announced. These petitioners will have to bear the expenses of a procedure that will require manufacturers’ engineers to conduct checks on 5 per cent of the EVMS per Assembly constituency or segment. This goes some way towards addressing a key concern raised by the ADR that an EVM processor can be tampered with.
The Supreme Court’s reasoning for these limited changes is that 100 per cent manual counting of VVPAT slips would take too long and that the exercise of tallying 5 per cent VVPAT slips with votes cast had not, so far, revealed mismatches. The Election Commission will, however, be required to invest in larger numbers of SLUS, given the restrictions on their reuse. This judgment builds on earlier Supreme Court verdicts that steadily added credibility to the world’s largest election exercise by electronic machines. In 2013, the apex court directed the Election Commission to introduce the VVPAT paper trail and in 2019, the court enhanced the number of polling stations for VVPAT verification from one Assembly constituency or segment to five.
Now that the matter has been settled in court, political parties would do well to not raise unsubstantiated questions, which can undermine the electoral process. Elections have been won and lost by different parties since the use of EVMS started. Besides, it is also at one level a decentralised exercise conducted by both central and state-government officials, which makes any intervention to influence outcomes difficult. EVMS should not be perpetually held responsible for electoral outcomes.