CPI(M) urges EC to re-work EVMs' sequence of placement of components

The CPI(M) on Monday urged the Election Commission to re-work the sequence of placement of components of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), saying the existing practice of the ballot unit directly sending the vote to the VVPAT without routing it through control unit could lead to manipulation.

In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury also demanded a 100% matching of VVPAT output with the EVM recorded data for each booth as well as a detailed plan of action and a status report on implementation to eliminate the adverse impact of money power.

On the VVPAT issue, he said at present, the exercise of the choice in the ballot unit directly goes to the VVPAT and it is not known whether that is what is being recorded in the Control Unit, which counts the votes of the EVM.

Read: Navjot Sidhu questions use of EVMs in polls, seeks voting through ballot papers

Technically speaking, he said, the choice exercised in the ballot unit ought to have been routed through the control unit of the EVM, which would, in turn, be transmitted to the VVPAT to be visible to the voter.

"The current sequence of the three units is otherwise. Therefore, there is a strong case for re-working the sequence of placement of these components," he said.

In the pre-VVPAT era, Yechury said, the biggest defence of the "sacrosanct" nature of the EVM was on the ground that the chip in the EVM machine was unaware of the names and symbols of the candidates before it was placed for verification.

He said the introduction of VVPAT has changed all this and introduces the element of prior knowledge of candidates, their symbols and the order of the names that appear on the Ballot Unit.

“In terms of actual operation, other factual evidence has shown that the introduction of the names, symbols and order on the Ballot Unit is interlinked with the operation of the VVPAT with the involvement of private agencies," he said.

"Therefore, if the VVPAT is manipulated and is subsequently connected to the Control Unit, it is possible that the manipulation is reflected in recording the vote. We have not received any authentic response from the ECI on this count so far," he added.

Yechury said the credibility of the conduct of elections in an electoral democracy is almost exclusively dependent on the implementation and the actions of the regulatory body, which in India's case is the Election Commission.

"The credibility of the election process is based on transparency and explanations provided by the ECI being verifiable. However, on both these counts, the response of the ECI, following the 2019 elections has been far less than adequate. We, on behalf of the CPI(M), had written to you on several occasions to elicit these which met with little or no response," he said.