Use of VVPAT in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections

In the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, the Election Commission of India decided to go all guns blazing with VVPAT used across all the 543 Lok Sabha seats as compared to the mere 8 in the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections. During counting, results from randomly chosen constituencies were matched with the VVPAT results to make sure that there is no mismatch. All this was done to put the EVM hacking debate to rest but did not fulfill the purpose due to a large blunder on part of the ECI themselves.

According to says Rule 94 (b) of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, “The used or printed VVPAT slips in any election… shall be retained for one year and shall thereafter be destroyed”.

This rule was not followed and it was the Quint that exposed it. It found that the Election Commission of India had already destroyed the printed VVPAT slips used in 2019 Lok Sabha elections only four months after the results were announced in May 2019.

In an RTI reply to the Quint, the Public Information Officer of Delhi Election Commission had said that “the VVPAT slips have been disposed of”. Attached with the RTI reply was the Election Commission’s letter, dated 24 September 2019, to Chief Electoral Officers of all States and Union Territories ordering the “disposal of VVPAT printed paper slips”.

Earlier while covering the elections, the Quint had shown how after the VVPAT machines had been identified for every constituency, they were checked, maintained and programmed by private engineers engaged by the government for up to two weeks, during which the VVPAT machines were clearly vulnerable to tampering. So, if at all the EVM-VVPAT machines were tampered with in 2019, the VVPAT slip showing the name of the candidate chosen by the voters could have been crucial evidence while investigating any such allegation.

It had also been found that at least eight cases of ‘mismatch’ between EVM and VVPAT vote counts were reported in Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya and Andhra Pradesh. The Election Commission ordered an inquiry into these cases in July 2019. An RTI wasfiled seeking information on the inquiry conducted. The EC replied in November 2019, saying the information was not available as the matter is still under the consideration of the EC’s Technical Experts Committee.

This raises important queries. If the VVPAT slips related to these eight cases were destroyed, how could an inquiry into the ‘mismatch’ of EVM and VVPAT vote counts have been conducted at all?

And – why did the Election Commission not follow the rules, and destroy the VVPAT slips within just four months? Was it, dare we say, destruction of evidence of vote tampering?

Why couldn’t the EC retain VVPAT slips of India’s most crucial elections? The one that decides the Prime Minister of the world’s largest democracy?

The Digpu News Bottomline

There are a fair number of counties including India, the Philippines and Brazil that still use EVMs for voting and some of them use EVMs manufactured in India. These include;

1. Belgium

2. Estonia

3. Venezuela

4. United Arab Emirates

5. Jordan

6. Maldives

7. Namibia

8. Egypt

9. Bhutan

10. Nepal

It is notable that none of these countries is as developed as India though Brazil and the Philippines are densely populated. However, when it comes to more developed countries like the US, UK and Germany, they have discontinued EVMs citing doubts about their authenticity and have declared them unconstitutional.

While VVPATs do provide a sense of security around the issue but the ECI blunder after the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections has casted a doubt over that as well.

So, is it time for India to go back to paper ballot and deal with the problem of booth capturing rather than keep using a system susceptible to hacking?

Now that it is clear that Chinese hackers caused power disruption in Mumbai, a paper ballot under heavy paramilitary presence seems to be a step in the direction of Democracy and true Constitutional Spirit.