Here’s What Happened in the Supreme Court Hearing Regarding VVPAT: Concerns Raised Over Returning to Paper Ballot System in Elections

X: @the_news_21

The Supreme Court, while hearing a clutch of petitions seeking cross-verification of votes cast with the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), raised concerns over the suggestion of reverting to the paper ballot system for conducting general elections in India.

During the hearing on Tuesday, senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), presented three suggestions to make the voting process more transparent. One of the options proposed by Bhushan was to return to the paper ballot system.

The other two suggestions included making the VVPAT glass transparent or providing the slip generated by the VVPAT to the voters, who would then put it into a ballot box.

A VVPAT unit produces a paper slip that is visible to the voter via a screen for about seven seconds before it gets stored in a sealed drop box.

Bhushan argued, “We can go back to paper ballots. Another option is to give the VVPAT slip to the voters in hand. Otherwise, the slips fall 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 second seconds.”

However, Justice Sanjiv Khanna, who was part of the bench hearing the case, expressed skepticism about reverting to the paper ballot system, stating, “We are in our 60s. We all know what happened when there were ballot papers, you may have, but we have not forgotten.”

The ADR, one of the petitioners, has sought the Supreme Court’s direction to the Election Commission and the Union government to ensure that voters are able to verify through VVPATs that their votes have been “counted as recorded.”

The plea argues that while the VVPAT slip is displayed for about seven seconds after pressing the button on the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM), there is no legal provision for the voter to verify that their vote has been “counted as recorded,” which is an indispensable part of voter verifiability.

The Supreme Court has scheduled the next hearing on the matter for Thursday, where further arguments and deliberations are expected to take place.

The case highlights the ongoing debate surrounding the transparency and integrity of the voting process in India, with various stakeholders advocating for measures to enhance voter confidence and ensure the credibility of electoral outcomes.

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