The VVPAT generates a paper slip that can be viewed by the voter and the paper slip is kept in a sealed cover and can be opened in case of a dispute.
Digital Desk: The Supreme Court sought responses from the Election Commission and the Center on Monday, marking a significant move in the case. The plea calls for a full count of VVPAT slips in polls, as opposed to the current practice of using VVPAT paper slips to verify only five randomly selected EVMs.
An impartial method for verifying votes, the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) enables voters to ascertain whether their votes were cast accurately.
The VVPAT generates a paper slip that can be viewed by the voter and the paper slip is kept in a sealed cover and can be opened in case of a dispute.
On April 8, 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that the poll panel should raise the number of electronic voting machines (EVMs) that go through physical verification by VVPAT from one to five in each assembly segment in a parliamentary constituency.
The statements of lawyers for activist Arun Kumar Agrawal, who was seeking a total count of VVPAT slips in elections rather than the verification of merely five randomly selected EVMs through VVPAT paper slips, were noted by a bench made up of justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta.
It sent notices regarding the plea, which might be scheduled for hearing on May 17, to the central government and the Election Commission (EC).
Gopal Sankaranarayanan, a senior lawyer, and Neha Rathi, an advocate, represented Agrawal.
The EC's rule, which requires that VVPAT verification be completed sequentially, was contested in the plea.
According to the request, five to six hours would be enough time to complete VVPAT verification if simultaneous verification was carried out and additional officers were stationed in each assembly constituency to count.
Only about 20,000 of the almost 24 lakh VVPATs that the government has purchased with nearly Rs 5,000 crore in total had their VVPAT slips authenticated, according to the statement.
It is essential that all VVPAT slips be counted and that voters be allowed to properly verify that their vote as cast in the ballot is also counted by allowing them to physically drop their VVPAT slip in the ballot box, the plea stated, given the numerous questions experts have raised regarding VVPATs and EVMs and the numerous discrepancies between EVM and VVPAT vote counts that have been reported in the past.
The notice was sent out by the highest court, which also marked it as pending.
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