Supreme Court to Hear 100% VVPAT Paper Slip Match for Votes Today

The verification process of VVPAT slips from 5 EVMs in an assembly constituency is underway, just days ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election. VVPAT, short for Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail, provides voters with the ability to verify if their vote was correctly cast and allocated to their chosen candidate. This system generates a paper slip, kept in a sealed cover, which can be utilized in case of disputes. Amid concerns and questions from the opposition about the EVM voting system, petitions have been filed to request cross-verification of every vote.

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and activist Arun Kumar Agarwal are among those who have filed the petitions. Agarwal specifically seeks the counting of all VVPAT slips and the ADR’s petition aims to ensure that voters can verify via VVPATs that their votes have been counted correctly. Furthermore, the matter has historical roots, with BJP leader Subramanian Swamy’s 2009 petition, which escalated to the Supreme Court’s 2013 judgment emphasizing the importance of the ‘paper trail’ in ensuring fair elections. Despite these calls for VVPAT verification of all votes, the Election Commission has cited manpower and infrastructure challenges and expressed concerns about the impact on the counting process.