Judge compares his home state’s population to Germany’s in the context of ballot versus EVM in Supreme Court involving VVPAT.

The population of my home state, West Bengal, exceeds that of Germany, Justice Dipankar Datta highlighted. He stressed the need to trust the system and discouraged the use of European examples. In a court session, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the Association for Democratic Reforms, had referenced Germany’s population while arguing for the counting and matching of VVPAT paper slips with EVM results.

This led to a query from Justice Datta about Germany’s population, to which Bhushan responded with the estimate of approximately 5 crore people, contrasting it with India’s 50-60 crore voters. Justice Sanjiv Khanna chimed in, pointing out the drawbacks of the ballot voting method and recalling the challenges associated with it. The discussion revolved around the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system, designed to allow voters to ensure that their votes are cast correctly and in support of their chosen candidate.

The VVPAT produces a paper slip securely stored for potential verification in case of disputes. Amid concerns from the opposition about the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) system, petitions have been filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms and activist Arun Kumar Agarwal. The petitions call for the cross-verification of each vote and the counting of all VVPAT slips.

They seek the court’s directive to ensure that voters can confirm through VVPATs that their votes are accurately recorded. The petitions emphasize the need for transparency and assurance in the electoral process, with the VVPAT slip displaying for a brief period after the voter presses the button on the EVM.