'We All Know What Happened': SC On Issues In Ballot Paper Voting; Says Human Intervention Causes Trouble

The Supreme Court heard petitions seeking cross-verification of the votes cast with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) on Tuesday. A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta pointed at the issues of voting with paper ballots.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan had argued saying most European countries, who went for voting with EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines), had gone back to the paper ballots system. In response, Justice Khanna said, “We are in our 60s. We all know what happened when there were ballot papers, you may have, but we have not forgotten,” Bar and Bench reported.

Bhushan also cited Germany’s example over ballot papers, to which Justice Dipankar asked him what Germany’s people. Bhushan told the court that Germany’s population was around 6 crore, while India has 50-60 crore voters.

“My home state West Bengal has more population that Germany. We need to repose some trust and faith on somebody. Do not try to bring down the system like this,” Justice Datta was quoted as saying. Meanwhile, Justice Khanna noted, “97 crore total number of registered voters. We all know what happened when there were ballot papers.”

The matter, however, will now be taken up for hearing on April 18 (Thursday).

SC HEARING ON CROSS-CHECKING EVM VOTES

• Counsel for one of the petitioners — Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) — advocate Prashant Bhushan, said that majority of the European countries who went with EVM voting have returned to ballot paper system.
• Justice Sanjiv Khanna responded by saying, “We are in our 60s. We all know what happened when there were ballot papers, you may have, but we have not forgotten.”
• “We can go back to paper ballots. Another option is to give VVPAT slip to the voters in hand. Otherwise, the slips falls into the machine and the slip can be then given to the voter and it can be put into the ballot box. Then the VVPAT design was changed, it had to be 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 was quoted as saying by NDTV.
• Another counsel, senior Advocate Sanjay Hedge told the apex court that the votes cast using EVMs should be tallied with VVPAT slips.
• In response, Justice Khanna said, “Yes, 60 crore VVPAT slips should be counted. Right?”
• The apex court bench noted that problems can be caused by human interventions and presence of human weakness can also be a part of it. This may also include biases, the court said.
• “Normally human interventions lead to problems and human weakness can be there which includes biases as well. Machine normally without human intervention will give you accurate results. Yes, the problem arises when there is human intervention or makes unauthorised changes when they are around the software or machine. If you have any suggestion to avert this, then you can give us that,” the SC bench was quoted as saying by Bar and Bench.
• Citing a research paper, advocate Prashant Bhushan spoke about a possibility of tampering with EVMs. He said that counting of just 5 VVPAT machines per assembly, when there are 200 such machines is not a justification. “The seven-second light can also lead to manipulation. The voter can be allowed to take the VVPAT slip and put it into the ballot box,” he added.
• Representing another petitioner, senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranayaran agreed to the submissions of advocate Prashant Bhushan and noted that the issue is not malice but the voter’s confidence in his vote.
• The top court asked the Election Commission to explain the process of voting via EVMs, how these machines are stored and how the votes are counted. It was also observed that no strict punishments are spelled out for EVM tampering.
• “Suppose there is some manipulation what the punishment prescribed. That is serious thing. There should be a fear that if something wrong is done then there will be punishment,” the top court observed.
• The ECI counsel responded and said, “Breach of office punishment is there.” However, Justice Khanna noted, “We are not on the procedure. There is no specific provision with regard to manipulation done, if at all.”
• Bhushan said that if there is mismatch, they will selectively use VVPAT data. “There are bound to be mismatch, there is human error not machine errors. Machine can be manipulated but that be checked and countered, we will see how,” the top court replied, LiveLaw reported.
• The advocate said that there is some confusion that five per cent VVPATs have been used, but it is not, it was 5 machines per assembly constituency. “Only 5 units are being scrutinised. The percentage of VVPAT scrutiny is 0.00185 per cent.”
• The advocate noted that at least 50 per cent verification is needed to restore the confidence. Advocate Husaifa Ahmadi, representing another petitioner, said that “just because it takes times to verify, that should not be a reason to not call for it to be verified.”
• “If the VVPATs can be compared with actual numbers of votes polled then it shall be in the interest of free and fair elections. The EC should welcome this,” advocate Ahmadi was quoted as saying by LiveLaw.
• “My vote cannot be checked once I have voted. There is no verification. Only under the statute will another vote be cast and if that is accurate then my vote will be assumed to be accurate,” advocate Nizam Pasha told the court.
• The top court noted that there are various assumptions about this. “If the machines are made in a way that no one knows the identity of the voter, that is right.” “We will take up on Thursday. Will you be happy with the private sector manufacturing the machine?”

What Happened Earlier?

The Supreme Court on April 1 had sought responses from the poll-governing body and the Centre on a plea filed by activist Arun Kumar Agrawal seeking complete count of VVPAT slips in elections as opposed to practice of tallying slips from only five random EVMs from each assembly of a constituency.

On April 3, the top court had said that it would hear the plea filed by NGO ADR next week along with other matters. This came after advocate Prashant Bhushan sought an urgent hearing.

ADR had sought the SC’s direction to the poll panel and the Centre to ensure the voters are able to verify through VVPATs that their vote has been “counted as recorded”.

The petition has sought matching the count in EVMs with votes that have been verifiably “recorded as cast” and to ensure that the voter is able to verify through VVPAT slip that his vote, as recorded on the paper slip, has been “counted as recorded”.

“However, there is a complete vacuum in law as the ECI has provided no procedure for the voter to verify that her vote has been ‘counted as recorded’ which is an indispensable part of voter verifiability. The failure of the ECI to provide for the same is in the teeth of purport and object of the directions issued by this Court in…Subramanian Swamy versus Election Commission of India (2013 verdict),” the plea said.

What is VVPAT?

Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) is an independent vote verification system which enables an elector to see whether his vote was cast correctly. It generates a paper slip which can be viewed by the voter. It is kept in a sealed cover and can be opened in case of a dispute.

(With inputs from PTI)