Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee leader Kamal Nath moved Supreme Court on Friday, 10 August, seeking random verification of VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) machines in the upcoming Madhya Pradesh assembly polls. The matter came up before a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar. The matter will be heard next week, PTI reported.
In his petition, Kamal Nath has sought a direction to the Election Commission to randomly verify VVPAT slips with EVM votes at 10 percent of polling stations in every constituency.
He has also said the voter list should be provided in text format.
The VVPAT system allows the voting machine to dispense a paper to voters, so that they can identify whether or not their vote has been cast correctly. The machines give voters immediate proof of the candidate they have voted for, The Indian Express explained in a report. After a vote is cast, a slip is displayed for seven seconds with the name of the candidate, after which it drops into the storage box. Only officials can access the machines.
In June, the Election Commission said it will tally paper trail slips with the results of electronic voting machines in 5% of polling stations for both Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, The Indian Express reported. However, paper trail slips in not more than 14 randomly-selected booths would be counted by officials.
(Inputs from PTI)
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