India is a huge country, here foreign methods don't work
-Important comment of the Supreme Court during the hearing on verification of VVPAT slip.
New Delhi. The Supreme Court on Tuesday made very important observations during the hearing of petitions requesting verification of votes containing Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips. The top court said that India is a huge country and hence foreign methods do not work here.
In fact, the petitioners had cited examples from foreign countries to argue in favor of the ballot voting system. Reacting sharply, a Supreme Court judge said his home state has a larger population than Germany and European examples do not work here.
Justice Dipankar Dutta said, the population of my home state West Bengal is more than that of Germany. We need someone to trust. Don't try to crash the system like this. Don't give such examples. European examples don't work here. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), had cited the example of Germany to argue that VVPAT paper slips should be counted and matched with the EVM results.
When Justice Dutta asked him what was the population of Germany, he replied that it was around 5 crores, whereas India had 50-60 crore voters. Justice Sanjiv Khanna intervened and said, 'There are 97 crore registered voters in India. He also mentioned the shortcomings in the ballot voting system. Justice Sanjeev Khanna said, we are in the sixth decade of our life. We all know what was the situation when voting was done through ballot papers. You may have forgotten, but we remember everything.
What is VVPAT?
VVPAT is an independent vote verification system that allows a voter to see whether his vote has gone to the same candidate for whom he has voted. Through this, a paper slip comes out from the machine which the voter can see and this slip is kept in a sealed envelope and in case of dispute, it can be opened.
VVPAT machines were first used in India in the 2014 general elections. It has been made by Electronics Corporation of India Limited and Bharat Electronics Limited.
What is the demand of ADR?
ADR has requested the court to issue directions to the Election Commission and the Center to ensure that voters can verify through VVPAT that their vote is deemed to have been registered. The petition seeks to match the EVMs with the votes whose votes have been verified and ensure that voters are able to verify their votes through the VVPAT slip.
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