SC dismisses cross-verification of votes cast on EVM, says no rolling back to ballot paper system

New Delhi: The Supreme Court dismissed all petitions seeking complete cross-verification of votes cast through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) and at the same time, also rejected switching back to to the ballot paper system for elections.

A Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta delivered the verdict.

Justice Khanna said that the court had discussed in detail the protocols and technical aspects and had hence rejected the request for 100 per cent verification of EVM votes with VVPAT slips.

He suggested that the ECI can examine whether there can be electronic machines for counting paper slips and whether there can be a bar code along with the symbols as regards which party.

The VVPAT machine is attached to the ballot unit of the EVM and provides visual verification for a voter’s vote by printing a slip of paper with the voter’s choice on it. This is later used to verify votes cast in five randomly selected polling booths per Assembly segment. The Opposition has been demanding that all VVPAT slips be cross-checked with the EVM votes.

In the last few years, there were doubts over the integrity of EVMs and the demand to count 100% VVPAT slips is because those in favour of it believe it will make the voting process more transparent.

In 2019, when TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu moved the Supreme Court demanding that 50% randomised VVPAT slips be counted. After this petition, the court increased the number of polling booths in which the votes would be verified from one to five even when ECI argued that it would delay the results by 5-6 days.

In December, the Opposition’s INDIA bloc had passed a resolution demanding 100% verification of VVPAT slips.