SC asks Election Commission to install paper trail in EVMs

According to the apex court, introduction of a paper trail in EVMs during thenext general elections in 2014 would ensure free and fair polls

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission to introduce in a phased manner a paper trail in electronic voting machines (EVMs) for the next general electionsin 2014, saying it will ensure free and fair polls.

The apex court also directed the Centre to provide financial assistance for introducing the vote verifier paper audit trail (VVPAT) system. A bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi said, "The VVPAT in EVMs will ensure free and fair polls and will help in sorting out disputes."

The court’s order came on a plea of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Dr Subramanian Swamy seeking a direction to the poll watchdog to ensure EVMs have a paper trail and issue a receipt to each voter.

The Election Commission had earlier told the court VVPAT was successfully and satisfactorily utilised at 21 polling stations in Nagaland during the Assembly elections in February this year.

The poll panel had also informed the bench that VVPAT can be introduced in a phased manner and cited administrative and financial reasons for it. It had said 13 lakh VVPAT machines would be needed for the general elections.

The Election Commission had said about Rs1,500 crore would be required for procuring VVPATs and installing it at all polling booths across the country for the Lok Sabha polls and there were only two State-owned companies — Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) and Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL) — which manufacture the machines.

Swamy had said both BEL and ECIL were capable of producing the number of machines required for the general elections.

In the VVPAT system, when a voter presses the button for the candidate of his choice in the EVM, a paper ballot containing the serial number, name and poll symbol of the candidate is printed, which can be verified by the voter.

A VVPAT is intended as an independent verification system for voting machines, designed to allow voters to verify that their votes were cast correctly, to detect possible election fraud or malfunction and to provide a means to audit the stored electronic results.

 
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