VVPATs

VVPATs

News: Recently the INDIA alliance, had requested a meeting with the Election Commission of India (ECI) to discuss and suggest changes regarding the use of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines.

What was their proposal?
• They proposed for a 100% verification of VVPAT slips.

What are VVPATs?
• When a vote is cast, the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machine, which is attached to the ballot unit (BU) of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM), prints out a slip of paper with the voter’s choice indicated on it.
• Though it remains behind glass, the printed slip is visible for seven seconds so the voter can see that the vote has been recorded correctly, before it falls into a box underneath. The design for VVPAT was approved in February 2013.
• The Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 were amended in 2013 to allow for a printer with a drop box to be attached to the EVM.
• The VVPAT was used for the first time in all 21 polling stations of the Noksen Assembly constituency of Nagaland in 2013, after which the EC decided to introduce VVPATs in a phased manner. 2019 Lok Sabha elections became the first general election to have 100% of EVMs being attached to VVPATs.

What is the current VVPAT Slip Counting Protocol?
• In 2018, the ECI consulted the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) to determine a statistically robust sample size for VVPAT slip verification.
• Existing Protocol: Initially, VVPAT slips of one randomly selected polling station per Assembly constituency were counted. This was increased to five polling stations per Assembly seat after a Supreme Court judgment in 2019.
• ISI Recommendation: The ISI suggested counting VVPAT slips from 479 EVMs to ensure a high confidence level that the proportion of defective EVMs is less than 2%.

What is the ECs stance?
• The EC argues that the current practice of verifying VVPATs from five polling stations per Assembly seat exceeds the ISI’s recommendation. The EC highlights that in past elections, no cases of vote misattribution were detected in VVPAT checks, attributing discrepancies to human errors.
• The EC views 100% VVPAT verification as regressive, time-consuming, and prone to human error, akin to manual ballot voting.