The Supreme Court of India has sought clarifications from the Election Commission of India regarding the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines
The Court asked the ECI several questions about how EVMs) work. They wanted to know if the microcontrollers used in the EVMs could be reprogrammed. This happened while the Lok Sabha elections are moving into the second phase of voting on April 26. The Supreme Court was listening to a bunch of requests asking for a full check of the votes counted in EVMs using Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail that’s VVPAT paper slips. They had already decided to hold off on giving their final decision on April 18.
During the proceedings, a Bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta posed the following questions to the poll body.
Is the microcontroller installed in the control unit of the EVMs or the VVPAT?
If the microcontroller installed in the EVMs was “one-time programmable”?
Whether the control unit and the VVPAT are sealed and stored?
How many symbol loading units are available with the ECI?
The Supreme Court also asked about the time limit for submitting election complaints and how long VVPAT slips should be kept. They pointed out that while the deadline for filing election complaints is 30 days, according to Section 81 of The Representation of People Act, 1951, it’s actually 45 days. So, they suggested that the period for retaining VVPAT slips should be extended accordingly.
The petitioners, including the Association for Democratic Reforms, said that the 97 crore registered voters in the country deserve a more transparent electoral system, whether it includes EVMs or not. However, the Supreme Court didn’t agree with the idea of going back to paper ballots to rebuild trust in the electoral process among ordinary citizens. They argued that machines provide completely accurate results unless there’s human interference.
The Election Commission of India (EC) said that it’s impossible to manipulate EVMs at any point. They stated that there have been 41,000 plus instances of random verification so far, and over four crore VVPAT paper slips have been compared with EVM results.
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