- By Mayukh Debnath
- Tue, 16 Apr 2024 09:23 PM (IST)
- Source:ANI
SC On Ballot Papers: While hearing a batch of pleas seeking cross-verification of the votes recorded by Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with the polling data captured by Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines, the Supreme Court on Tuesday raised doubts about the petitioners' contentions about the feasibility of the physical counting process.
A division bench of the top court comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta was not convinced with petitioners' argument that assserted ballot papers as being more credible than EVMs. "We are in our 60s. We all know what happened when there were ballot papers; you may have, but we have not forgotten," Justice Khanna said as advocate Prashant Bhushan presented the petitioners' arguments.
The apex court rejected the arguments by Bhushan, appearing for the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), about how most European countries that had opted for voting through EVMs have returned to paper ballots. As Bhushan cited what's Germany's example, the bench asked about the population of the country, to which advocate replied that it is around five-six crore. Justice Khanna said that 97 crore is the total number of registered voters in India.
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"My home state, West Bengal, has more population than Germany. We need to repose some trust and faith on somebody. Do not try to bring down the system like this," Justice Datta told petitioners' counsels. The matter has been listed for further hearing on April 18, which happens to be the day before the commencement of the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
In its plea, ADR, which is an NGO, has sought cross-verification by the voters of votes cast by them as "counted as recorded" in the EVMs with VVPAT. The bench also observed that human intervention in the voting and counting process have the potential to cause further problems and biases.
"Normally, human interventions lead to problems and human weakness can be there which includes biases as well. Machines, normally without human intervention, will give you accurate results. Yes, the problem arises when there is human intervention or someone makes unauthorised changes when they are around the software or machine. If you have any suggestions to avert this, then you can give us that, the bench was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
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The requirement of the voters verifying that their votes have been "recorded as cast" is somewhat met when the VVPAT slip is displayed for about seven seconds after pressing the button on the EVM through a transparent window for the voters to verify that their vote has been recorded on the internally printed VVPAT slip before the slip falls into the 'ballot box', the plea by ADR says.
It said that however, there is a complete vacuum in law as the poll panel has provided no procedure for the voter to verify that his or her vote has been 'counted as recorded' which is an indispensable part of voter verifiability.
(With inputs from ANI)