New Delhi, April 26: With the Supreme Court on Friday rejecting a plea for 100 per cent verification of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) count, the voting process for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections remains the same.
Voting will continue to take place using EVMs, with 100 per cent of the machines attached to a VVPAT unit. As per the existing provisions, VVPAT slips of five randomly selected Assembly constituencies or segments would be counted to verify with the EVM count. The petitioner, the Association for Democratic Reforms, had sought 100 per cent counting of VVPAT slips. The court also rejected a plea for a return to paper ballots. As far as voters are concerned, the procedure remains the same.
In a first, the court, however, gave directions to the Election Commission to seal and store the symbol loading units (SLUs), which are computers used to enter symbols of the candidates on the VVPAT machines, for 45 days after the declaration of results. These SLUs are to be opened, examined and dealt with the way EVMs are.
The court also allowed the candidates who come second and third to ask for verification of the burnt memory semicontrollers in 5 per cent of the EVMs per Assembly segment of the Parliamentary constituency.
This verification would be done after a written request is made by the candidate and would be carried out by a team of engineers of the EVM manufacturers.
The request for verification has to be made within seven days of the declaration of results.
The candidates would be required to bear the expenses, which would be refunded in case the EVM is found to be tampered with, the court said.
