While the upcoming polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh will have the much talked about VVPAT systems, the Election Commission is not yet ready for a mandatory counting of the paper trail for all designated constituencies just as yet.
The Times of India reports that there will not be mandatory counting of the paper trails generated by the voter-verifiable paper audit trail in certain designated constituencies when Gujarat and Himachal go to polls.
Sources within the EC told the newspaper that the body was not ready to introduce mandatory counting for designated constituencies as yet and that they needed more time to ‘iron out the glitches’ in the system. The approach should be a ‘step-by-step’ one, the official told the newspaper, saying that “we need to get the system of 100% VVPAT-based polls right and iron out glitches before moving on to mandatory counting of paper trail in a fixed number of polling stations in each constituency.”
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The VVPAT system can take a printout of every vote cast on an EVM and the suggestion to introduce mandatory counting was made at an all-party meeting in May this year.
The issues surrounding the Electronic Voter Machines (EVMs) blew over earlier this year when BSP chief Mayawati accused the BJP-led government of ‘rigging EVMs’, alleging that votes polled for other parties were finding their way to the BJP. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal also joined in the chorus.
The controversy was rekindled in April after the VVPAT in question was only dispensing BJP slips. The Collector of Bhind and the SP were transferred over the controversy and the EC had sent in officials with technical teams to look into the allegations.
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In June the EC held an open demonstration on EVMs for political parties after AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj demonstrated the ‘hacking’ of the machine in the Assembly.
The challenge was organised after several major opposition parties had claimed that the faith of people in the machines has eroded due to allegations of tampering.
The EC had maintained that EVMs are tamper-proof while the BSP and the AAP had alleged that the machines used in the Assembly Elections were tampered with and favoured the BJP. Later, several other parties had joined the chorus and wanted the EC to revert to paper ballots.
The Commission had used EVMs used during the Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand electronic assembly polls for the challenge.
The NCP and the CPI (M) were the only parties which had applied to participate in the challenge. The poll panel had invited the seven national and 49 state parties recognised by it for the challenge. It had left out smaller parties and Independents who had contested the recent polls from participating.
With Agency Inputs
