New Delhi: There are several drawbacks to the paper ballot system. The Supreme Court opined that it is impossible to count all the vivipat admit cards.
A petition was filed in the Supreme Court on behalf of an organization called Democratic Reforms Association, demanding ‘to return to the paper ballot system or to implement the system of issuing acknowledgment slips to the voter through the VVPAT machine while voting in the electronic voting machine’.
The petition came up for hearing yesterday in the bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dibangar Dutta. Then the lawyers for the petitioners said:
Prashant Bhushan: Many European countries have switched from electronic voting machines back to paper ballots. Paper ballot system is followed in Germany. Several studies have shown that electronic voting machines can be tampered with. Hence, India may revert back to paper ballot system.
If not, the voter can be given the acknowledgment slips provided by the ViviPod machine and put in a ballot box. All these vivipad tickets must be counted. Currently, only 5 VVIPAT machines are counted per assembly constituency.
It is only 5 percent. The details of who we voted for are only flashed for 7 seconds in existing Vivipod machines. This can lead to abuse.
Gopal Sankaranarayanan: Voters should know for sure who we voted for. We need to instill that confidence in voters. That’s what matters. This is what they said.
Subsequently, when the judges said, “We are 60 years old. You may have forgotten what happened when the paper ballot system was in place. We haven’t forgotten. Germany has a population of around 6 crores. There are 97 crore voters in our country.
If all the vivipad admit cards are to be counted, there is a possibility of human error and bias. It is impossible to think so. “A machine without human intervention will give correct results,” he said. The trial continues tomorrow.