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Supreme Court says no to VVPAT verification of EVM votes
KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)
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Summary
The court said the control units, ballot unit, VVPATs may be verified by engineers of the manufacturing companies if a candidate makes a request within seven days of declaration of results.
The Supreme Court on Friday, April 26, rejected pleas seeking complete cross-verification of votes cast using electronic voting machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPATs).
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta delivered two concurring verdicts in the matter. Pronouncing the judgement, Justice Khanna said the court has rejected all the petitions, including those seeking resorting back to ballot papers in elections.
The bench said that the district election officer shall certify authencity of microcontrollers. It added that candidates seeking to re-tally votes to bear expenses for additional verification of votes and requests has to be made within seven days. The court asked expenses to be refunded in case EVM is found faulty or tampered with.
The court said that the Election Commission may explore the possibility of deploying machines to count VVPATs.
It said that the containers carrying the symbol loading unit to be sealed in the presence of polling agents and candidates and to remain secured for 45 days. The control units, ballot unit, VVPATs may be verified by engineers of the manufacturing companies if a candidate makes a request within seven days of declaration of results, it added.
The court said blindly distrusting a system may lead to unwarranted suspicions.
On Arpril 24, the top court said it cannot “control the elections” or issue directions simply because doubts have been raised about the efficacy of EVM. The court had said it cannot change the thought process of those doubting the advantages of polling machines and advocating going back to ballot papers.
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