Supreme Court seeks full VVPAT verification from ECI in electoral process

The Supreme Court of India has taken a significant step in the direction of electoral transparency, issuing a notice to the Election Commission of India (ECI) in response to a plea advocating for a meticulous count of Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips in elections.

Presently, VVPAT verification is limited to votes recorded in 5 randomly selected Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in each assembly segment. However, the petitioner urges for every EVM vote to be cross-checked against its corresponding VVPAT slip.

Furthermore, the petitioner insists on allowing voters to physically deposit the slips generated by VVPAT into a designated ballot box, ensuring their ballot is accurately accounted for.

Filed by lawyer and activist Arun Kumar Agrawal, the plea challenges the Election Commission's guideline mandating sequential VVPAT verification, citing undue delays. Agrawal advocates for simultaneous verification, which he argues could be completed within 5-6 hours with the deployment of additional officers in each assembly constituency.

The plea also seeks to nullify Guideline No. 14.7(h) of the Manual on Electronic Voting Machine and VVPAT, contending that it hampers comprehensive VVPAT verification.

Despite substantial government expenditure on VVPAT procurement, only a fraction of the slips are currently verified, raising concerns about the integrity of the electoral process.

The petitioner underscores the importance of meticulous VVPAT verification, particularly in light of reported discrepancies between EVM and VVPAT vote counts in the past.

This plea reignites a longstanding debate surrounding the tallying of VVPAT slips with EVMs. Previously, leaders of opposition parties had petitioned for increased VVPAT verification ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, leading to the Supreme Court's decision to raise the number of randomly selected EVMs for verification from 1 to 5 per assembly segment.

However, subsequent pleas for comprehensive VVPAT verification have faced dismissal, prompting ongoing scrutiny of the electoral process.