Plea For 100% VVPAT Verification Of EVM Votes : Live Updates From Supreme Court

Sankaranaryanan: the EC in their reply had not addressed the issues raised by us.

Court:is there a timer in these machines?

ECI: no but it can be put

Court: so when the counting starts, can the clock data be made available to the candidates. 

Court: if this is true, the candidate would have immediately challenged it. If you have the number of the machine, you know where it was and what number of votes were cast.

Why will the candidate not object?

Court: if there is any such discrepancy, each candidate has that data. Each machine has a number, so whenever the candidate checks they can see how many votes were cast or recorded.

There may sometimes be a discrepancy. If there is, then the candidate can put a query.

Sankarayanarayn: this is the shortest possible way to give confidence to the voter with the elections looming.

We have given a demonstration.

From the 2019 elections, the Quint saw the data on the ECs website to go statewise and this data was pulled from the website later.

Voter turnout data vs votes counted. There were discrepancies in 373 constituencies. There was a surplus of votes counted.

Court: there will be some IPC offences.

Sankaranarayanan: the opaque box does not allow any interaction with the voter. A physical slip allows confirmation for the voter which is critical.

J Khanna: what is the punishment if there is any manipulation that happens? There should be a fear of consequences

Singh for ECI: s. 132A and 134 of the RP Act. For procedure.

J Khanna: this is much more serious than procedure. So there is no specific provision

ECI: once poll is closed, only then we can

J Khanna: if polling is closed at 4pm, and till then 1000 votes were cast, so then the officer closes the polling. Will he not have access to the data? It is possible?

ECI: candidates representative will not allow

J Khanna: otherwise he can. So there is not intervention to the data stored in the machine

J Khanna: is the data uploaded? No? It remains with the machine itself? How do you count the votes?

You look at each VVPAT unit display

Can’t the polling officer also gave access to it? When the polling takes place?

ECI: it is not possible, only after the poll is closed we can

J Khanna: tell us where the candidates get to interact with the machines and how they are kept to prevent misuse or abuse?

Bhushan: if there is a malicious program put based on a timer, it may function properly till the polling day, and malfunction only during the voting hours between 10am-4pm

J Khanna: the roll which is left, can you cross checked the number of votes based on the unused roll?

ECI: paper depletion will be mentioned.

J Khanna: can you give us all this in a note