EC responds to Jairam Ramesh’s concern on VVPATs, says have ‘full faith’ in EVMs
Jairam Ramesh had written to the election commission on December 30 last year, requesting that a delegation of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) be given an appointment to put forth their views on the VVPAT slips
The Election Commission (EC) on Friday dismissed concerns raised by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) stating the commission has “full faith” in using the electronic voting machines (EVM) in the elections.
Ramesh had written to the election commission on December 30 last year, requesting that a delegation of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) be given an appointment to put forth their views on the VVPAT slips.
The poll watchdog in a response to Ramesh directed him to its FAQs on the subject and its response dated August 23, 2023, and said that the rules governing paper slips were introduced by the Congress-led government in 2013.
“Rule 49A and 49M of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, governing VVPAT and handling of paper slips were introduced by INC (Indian National Congress) on 14th August 2013,” read the letter signed by Pramod Kumar Sharma, principal secretary, EC.
The election commission stated that it has increased the number of questions in its FAQs from 76 to 85 to answer questions about the properties of the VVPAT slips, why and when they were included, tracing the origin of the VVPAT slips, and what happens when the VVPAT or the control unit are run out of battery during voting.
It further is stated that current EVMs in use in Indian elections are “compliant with the extant legal framework” created and strengthened by the successive Union government of the day and jurisprudence evolved over more than 40 years by the Constitutional Courts of India.
“Anything beyond existing legal framework and established jurisprudence is beyond the singular domain of the commission,” read the letter.
The Opposition in a meeting on December 19 last year, had voiced doubts about the integrity of the functioning of the EVMs. Sharma stated that the Supreme Court and the Delhi high court had previously dismissed three different pleas against the use of EVMs and VVPATs in the Indian election.
In its December 19 resolution on EVMs, the INDIA bloc parties reiterated concerns about the design and operation of the EVMs and mentioned that they had submitted a detailed memorandum to the poll body. “Instead of the VVPAT slip falling in the box, it should be handed over to the voter who shall then place it in a separate ballot box after having verified his or her choice. 100% counting of VVPAT slips should then be done.”
Subsequently, Ramesh sent a letter to the EC on December 30.
Currently, VVPAT slips of five randomly selected polling stations of every assembly constituency or assembly segment are tallied with the electronic count of the corresponding control units “to establish a strong correlation between the vote cast and the vote counted as cast with an extremely high level of confidence”.
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The EC said that the apex court’s mandate to tally five randomly chosen VVPAT systems per constituency/segment “goes far beyond the recommendation of taking a sample size of 479 as given by the expert committee [which the EC had appointed]”. It said that for parliamentary elections, this means testing 20,625 randomly chosen VVPAT systems given the 4,125 assembly segments.
“If no mismatch in the EVM and VVPAT count is found in such a sample, then it can be said with a very high level of confidence or with near certainty that the sanctity of the election process is not affected by the use of EVMs,” the poll watchdog said.
The poll body said that the VVPAT slip is a thermal paper which can retain what is printed on it for “about five years when stored properly”.
It also mentioned that the printed slip of VVPAT contains the candidate’s serial number, name of the candidate, the party or the candidate’s symbol, the session number and the VVPAT ID.
Each VVPAT slip bears the unique ID number of the VVPAT that printed the slip so using the slip, the poll body can identify the source VVPAT, the EC reiterated in the new questions.
