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- The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea of 21 Opposition parties to review its judgment rejecting 50% random physical verification of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) using Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).
- The review plea had highlighted large-scale tampering and selective malfunctioning of EVMs in the present Lok Sabha polls and demanded at least 25% random physical verification of EVMs with VVPATs
- Earlier the Supreme Court had directed the Election Commission to increase random matching of VVPAT slips with EVMs to five polling booths per assembly segment of a parliamentary constituency or Assembly consistency.
- Previously, under the ECI guideline 16.6, only the VVPAT slips from one EVM in every Assembly segment/constituency was subjected to physical verification.
- The Court had observed that the move would ensure greater degree of accuracy and increase satisfaction in the election process of not just the political parties but of the entire electorate.
- However, Supreme Court’s decision was far shot from what the Opposition had demanded- at least 50% of paper trails be verified with EVMs. The physical scrutiny of slips in five EVMs has increased the VVPAT verification percentage from the previous 0.44% to less than 2%.
- Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) is an independent system attached to an EVM that allows the voters to verify that their votes are cast as intended. It helps to detect any possible election fraud or malfunction of EVMs.
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