VVPAT glitches pose a new headache for poll panel

VVPAT glitches pose a new headache for poll panel

News:

1. In recent by elections, there are reports of malfunctioning of EVMs in many booths, especially in Kairana and Bhandra-Gondiya.

Important Facts:

1. The Chief Election Officer Uttar Pradesh has admitted that the commission received complaints of malfunctioning of VVPAT machines.
2. The VVPAT replacement rate due to glitches in the machines was as high as 20.82% (way above the 5% limit seen as acceptable by the EC)) in Kairana, 19.22% in Bhandara-Gondia and 13.16% in Palghar.
3. Some of reasons which has led to failure of VVPAT include:

• Electronic devices were sensitive to extreme heat.
• Fitting of VVPAT machine under direct light.
• Mishandled use of VVPAT
•  VVPATs were being used for the first time by polling staff (unlike the EVM itself)

4. About VVPAT machine

• The VVPAT, or Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail, is an EVM-connected verification printer device.
• It allows voters to verify if their vote has indeed gone to the intended candidate by leaving a paper trail of the vote cast.
• After the voter casts his or her mandate by pressing a button in the EVM, the VVPAT connected to it prints a slip containing the poll symbol and the name of the candidate.
• Slips from a randomly selected polling booth from each constituency are then matched with the EVM tallies during counting to check for the accuracy of the process.

5. EVMs were use in India since 1998 and have been gradually upgraded with security features to avoid any malpractice of voting machine.

6. The VVPATs will bring in accountability and transparency to the voting process.

7. The VVPATs were introduced in the past year and were recently used in the Goa Assembly elections in 2017.