'India not Europe, cannot compare population sizes', SC on returning to paper ballots

SC hears plea on EVM-VVPAT tallying

The Supreme Court on April 16 observed that it would not be practical for a country the size of India to return to paper ballots, considering the population sizes and other factors.

A bench comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Dutta said "What is the population of Germany and what is the population of India ? We are in our 60s now and we know what used to happen earlier when there were paper ballots." Dipankar Dutta further observed that his home state West Bengal has more population than Germany.

"We need to repose some trust and faith on somebody. Do not try to bring down the system like this," Dutta added.

The observations were made in light of lawyer Prashant Bhushan's submission that the country must return to paper ballots to avoid questions of tampering with Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and to bring more transparency into elections. Bhushan was arguing a plea seeking cross-verification of the votes cast in electronic voting machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).

Bhushan put forth three suggestions to the court return to paper ballot, handover VVPAT slips to voters and make VVPAT glasses more transparent. He said " It had to be a transparent glass but it was changed to dark opaque mirror glass where it is only visible when the light is on for 7 seconds."

Bhushan further argued that the ECI is counting  five VVPAT machines per assembly when there are 200 such machines, he noted that this is unjustified.

A total of five lawyers appeared for the petitioners and argued the case on various points. Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan cited a media article that said there were discrepancies between EVMs and VVPAT slips in 373 constituencies to justify his case.

What is the punishment for tampering with EVMs?

During the course of the hearing, the court asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) if there was any punishment contemplated under law to punish persons tampering with the EVMs.

The court noted that when there is a punishment for tampering with the EVMs, the seriousness of the issue increases and instances of manipulation may also come down.

Bench observed "Normally human intervention leads to a problem. Machines normally without any human intervention will give you accurate results. Problem arises when there is human intervention in these machines."

The court has also sought for details of CCTV cameras installed at all polling booths. The ECI responded noting that CCTV cameras are installed in 50 percent of polling booths.

The hearing of the case is likely to resume on April 18.

What is VVPAT?

The reliability of VVPAT systems has been questioned for a while. Many critics have cited instances of malfunctioning printers, paper jams, and discrepancies between electronic and paper records.

VVPAT, which was introduced for the time in India in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, is a ballot-less vote verification system connected with the EVM. When a voter casts their vote using an EVM, the VVPAT system generates a paper slip containing the name and symbol of the candidate for whom the vote was cast. The paper slip can be viewed by the voter. This allows the individual to verify whether the vote was cast correctly on the EVM.

This is not the first time that the matter has reached the top court. On April 8, 2019, the Supreme Court directed the electoral commission to raise the number of EVMs subjected to VVPAT physical verification from one to five per assembly segment in a Lok Sabha constituency.