One more filter to transparency for the election process to clarify purity of VVPATs

New Delhi, March 15: The Supreme Court today issued notice on a petition filed by leaders from 21 political parties seeking a direction to the Election Commission to randomly verify at least 50 per cent votes using Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) in the polls to 17th Lok Sabha.

VVPAT is a paper slip generated by the Electronic Voting Machine every time a voter casts his vote, recording the party to whom the vote was made. This is kept in a sealed cover to be opened only in case of a future dispute.

The petition also challenges the decision of ECI to verify VVPAT of only one randomly selected booth of a constituency. The petitioners say that this will account only for 0.44% of the votes polled. This guideline defeats the entire purpose of VVPAT and makes the same "ornamental" without actual substance, they state.

"A 50% randomised verification in each assembly constituency/assembly segment is a reasonable sample size to both (a) allay the fears of the general public with regard to EVM tampering and; (b) be a statistically significant sample size to ensure that EVMs are working properly," the plea said.

The ECI had informed the Court in 2017 that VVPAT will be used 100% in future elections. However, the decision taken by the ECI in July 2018 was to verify VVPAT of a randomly selected polling station from a constituency.

The bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi has asked the ECI to give its response on March 25.