New Delhi. During the hearing in the Supreme Court on petitions seeking counting of votes cast using ‘Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail’ (VVPAT) along with EVMs, advocate Nizam Pasha, appearing for the petitioners, argued that there should be a provision that voters You can put your VVPAT slip in the ballot box yourself. On this, Justice Khanna asked whether this will not affect the voter’s right to privacy? Advocate Nizam Pasha argued that the voter’s right to vote is more important than his privacy.
On behalf of lawyer Sanjay Hegde, it was said that in case of matching of all the slips, the argument being made by the Election Commission (EC) that it will take 12-13 days is wrong. The Election Commission official told the court that there are three units in the EVM system, ballot unit, control unit and the third VVPAT. To suppress the ballot unit symbol. The control unit stores the data and is for VVPAT verification. ADR’s lawyer Prashant Bhushan said that the light in the VVPAT machine burns for 7 seconds and if that light remains burning all the time then the voter can see the entire function.
The control unit has 4 MB of memory
The Election Commission official said that the control unit gives the order to print the VVPAT. It is visible to the voter for seven seconds and then it falls into the sealed box of the VVPAT. Each control unit has 4 MB of memory. The commissioning process takes place 4 days before the voting and the process is scrutinized in the presence of all the candidates and engineers are also present. During the hearing in the Supreme Court, lawyer Prashant Bhushan mentioned the glitch found in EVM during mock voting in Kasargod, Kerala. He told the court that during mock voting, 4 EVMs and VVPAT were recording an additional vote in favor of BJP. The court asked lawyer Maninder Singh, appearing for the Election Commission, to investigate these allegations. See if any errors are found there?
Supreme Court asked, do candidates test EVMs?
The Supreme Court asked whether there can be any tampering in the program memory? The Election Commission said that it cannot be changed, it is a firmware and is between software and hardware. It cannot be changed at all. After first selecting EVMs at random, the machines go to the strong room of the Assembly and are locked in the presence of political parties. The Supreme Court asked whether candidates are allowed to test when you send the EVMs. The Election Commission said that a mock poll is conducted before the machines are kept in the strong room. Candidates are allowed to take random machines and conduct polls to test them.
The Supreme Court asked how many votes can be cast in one minute. The ECI official said that generally it takes 15 seconds for one vote, hence a maximum of 4 votes can be cast in a minute. At present this number is less than 4. The ECI official said that we also have EVM demonstration centers in every district and anyone can come and get information about the machine.
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Tags: EVM, prashant bhushan, Supreme Court, VVPAT
FIRST PUBLISHED: April 18, 2024, 14:00 IST