EVMs are Accurate Unless Maligned by Human Bias: Supreme Court
The court observed that elections in India are a humongous task. Do not try to bring down the system. Next hearing of the case is on April 18.
Image Source: Madhyamam
The two-judge bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta of the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the idea of using paper ballots to restore confidence in the electoral process, saying machines give absolutely accurate results unless human bias maligns them.
“Human weaknesses, including bias, may lead to a problem. Machines without human intervention would give absolutely accurate results,” Justice Sanjiv Khanna observed.
The Court was hearing a petition filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and by Arun Kumar Agarwal highlighting the fundamental right of a voter to get information about his vote. The petitioners clarified they were not casting aspersions on or malice to the EVMs, rather they are only concerned about the EVM (Electronic Voting Machine) system which did not provide confirmation or confidence about the votes to the voters.
The VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) showed the slip only for 7 seconds after the vote has been cast.
“I am not talking about the urbane voter in this courtroom. I am talking about the queues of multitudes who are hustled into the polling booths to press a button and hustled out, not knowing what really happened. Leaving aside the foibles about the past regarding the ballot papers, that system had at least given the little man confidence that he had put his little cross across the right party symbol,” Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranaryana appearing for Mr. Agarwal said.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan said the voter leaves the booth with no sense of accuracy. He put forward three options – reverting back to paper ballot, giving VVPAT paper slips to voters for them to put in the ballot box, and making the VVPAT screen transparent glass rather than opaque.
The petitioners have sought 100 percent cross-verification of VVPAT slips with the EVM vote count.
They argued that the government spent about rupees 5,000 crore to purchase nearly 24 lakh VVPATs, but only slips from approximately 20,000 VVPATs could be verified.
They highlighted a judgment produced by the top court in 2013 in Subramanian Swamy vs Election Commission of India that there should be the fullest transparency in the election process and to restore the confidence of the voters.
Prashant Bhushan claimed that European countries like Germany had gone back to the use of paper ballots. Over this, Justice Datta remarked that India has 98 crore registered voters compared to 6 crore population in Germany.
He said, “Elections in India are a humongous task. My home state, West Bengal, is more populated than Germany. You have to repose some trust in somebody. Of course, they (election commission) are accountable. Do not try to bring down the system.”
Justice Khanna said candidates could exercise their right if they found a discrepancy between the total votes cast and votes counted.
The court fixed the next hearing on Thursday, April 18, 2024.
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- News Writer
- Mohit Dalal, a graduate in Psychology currently pursuing a Master's degree in Journalism, is deeply intrigued by society and its norms. His interest in this captivating field has inspired a desire to excel in legal journalism. Mohit aspires to make significant contributions to the field of journalism, particularly in covering legal issues and related societal matters.
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