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Source-This post on EVM-Demand for 100% recount of all VVPATs has been created based on the article “EVM-Demand for 100% recount of all VVPATs” published in “The Hindu” on 5 April 2024.
UPSC Syllabus-GS Paper-2– Salient Features of the Representation of People’s Act.
Context-Many oppositions political parties have demanded 100% recount of all VVPATs, instead of the current method of sampling the number of recounts, to have full transparency. The Supreme Court of India has now listed a series of petitions related to this demand.
What is Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail?
1) Introduction-It was first introduced in India in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
2) Description-It is an independent system that has two parts, namely, a VVPAT Printer and VVPAT Status Display Unit (VSDU) attached to the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). This allows the voters to verify that their votes are cast as intended.
What is the existing way to use VVPAT for ensuring transparency?
There is provision of counting VVPAT tallies from five random polling booths in every Assembly constituency that will have to be matched with the EVM vote-count to ensure that there is no tampering or hacking of Electronic Voting machines.
How valid are the concerns expressed by political parties about the functioning of EVMs?
1) EVMs,like every machine, have suffered certain glitches.However,they have been quickly replaced in the event of machine failures.
2) There is no substantial evidence to suggest the fact that they are prone to hacking or manipulation.
For ex-sample counting of VVPATs, across both the general election in 2019 and several other Assembly elections, has shown that the mismatch between the VVPAT recount and the EVM count has been very less. That mismatch too was an outcome of trivial errors like non-deletion of mock polls in the machine before the voting process or errors in manual recording of the final count from the machine.
What should be the way forward?
1) There should be machine audit trail of all the commands or functions that are executed by EVMS along with VVPATs. This could make the system more robust and be considered as an upgrade to the existing machines
2) There can be an increase in recount sample size of VVPATs in the selected number of Assemblies specific to each State/Union Territory based on the size of the province.
3) There can be an increase in the recount sample size in seats where the margin of victory between candidates is narrow.
Thus, it would be counterproductive to demand 100% recount of all VVPATs. Further, this will also reinforce the fears EVM are prone to hacking.
Question for practice
What is the existing way to use VVPAT for ensuring transparency? What steps can be taken to assuage fears of opposition political parties?
