Judge On Ballot vs EVM: My Home State’s Population Is Greater Than Germany’s

Justice Dipankar Datta emphasized the need to trust the system and cautioned against attempts to undermine it by citing European examples. He specifically mentioned that such examples do not apply in the Indian context. He made these remarks in response to Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who cited Germany as an example while arguing for the counting and matching of VVPAT paper slips with EVM results. During the argument, Justice Datta questioned the population of Germany, to which Bhushan replied that it was about 5 crores, while India has 50-60 crore voters.

However, Justice Sanjiv Khanna intervened to point out that India has 97 registered voters and highlighted the drawbacks of the ballot voting method. The VVPAT (Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail) was explained as a tool that allows voters to verify that their vote was cast correctly and went to the candidate they support. It generates a paper slip that is sealed and can be opened in case of a dispute. Amidst concerns about the EVM system, petitions have been filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and activist Arun Kumar Agarwal, calling for cross-verification of every vote and the counting of all VVPAT slips.

Arun Kumar Agarwal’s petition seeks the counting of all VVPAT slips, while the ADR’s petition requests the court to direct the Election Commission and the Centre to ensure that voters can verify through VVPATs that their votes have been “counted as recorded”. The petitions argue that the current practice of briefly displaying the VVPAT slip after pressing the EVM button is not sufficient for voters to verify that their votes have been recorded accurately.