Plea in Supreme Court seeks VVPAT verification in more polling booths per constituency
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear on Wednesday a PIL, a day before counting of votes begins in five states, demanding verification of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) at the beginning of counting of votes, rather than verification after the counting is over.
A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana and comprising Justices A S Bopanna and Hima Kohli was presented the plea by senior advocate Meenakshi Arora. The bench questioned Arora about mentioning the plea just 2 days before the counting. Arora pressed for a hearing on the petition Wednesday, as counting is the day after tomorrow.
The plea has sought VVPAT verification of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in five booths per constituency instead of one booth per constituency, which is the current practice.
The bench told her to inform the Election Commission about the plea and the court will examine the matter on Wednesday. During the brief hearing, the bench pointed out the 2019 guidelines.
In April 2019, the Supreme Court had ordered the Election Commission to increase the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips from one Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) per Assembly constituency to five.
[With Inputs from IANS]
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I don’t understand how it matters, whether VVPATs are counted first or last. But the demand, per se, doesn’t sound unreasonable, if this would help give more comfort to the opposition.
100% VVPAT, as proof of election integrity, is a very important long term contribution of Dr Swamy.
The EVM related complaints have been extremely muted after 100% VVPAT, because everyone knows that no one, surely not the general public or judiciary, will take any more complaints about EVMs seriously.
What % of VVPATs are counted for verification, whether first or last, are matters of detail.
Ah, the trailer is being released. The post-poll narrative will be “evm fraud”. Except the howling jackals, I mean jackasses, will conveniently forget TN and WB – to name just two states where the BJP got its butt kicked.