VVPAT votes to be tallied in 5 polling stations

The Election Commission on Thursday said that it would make all efforts to implement the order of the Supreme Court to tally the digital vote data retrieved from the Electronic Voting Machines with the number of slips generated by the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) devices in at least five polling stations in every assembly segments of a parliamentary constituency.

The poll-panel said that it would make all efforts to implement the direction of the Supreme Court with immediate effect.

The Supreme Court's order will be implemented on May 23 next when the votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, as well as the assembly elections in five states, will be counted.

The poll-panel at present verifies VVPAT slips with the electronic vote count on the EVM in one randomly selected polling station in every assembly constituency in case of state assembly elections and in one randomly selected polling station in every assembly segment of a parliamentary constituency in elections to the Lok Sabha.

The SC now directed the SC to match EVM and VVPAT vote-counts in five randomly selected polling stations in every assembly constituency in case of assembly polls and in five randomly selected polling stations in every assembly segments of each parliamentary constituency in case of Lok Sabha polls.

The EC sources said that the declaration of poll results might be slightly delayed on May 23. However, matching vote-counts in EVMs and VVPATs for five polling stations is easier compared to the demand of the 21 opposition parties.

The Congress, Trinamool Congress, Telugu Desam Party and 18 other opposition parties had moved the apex court demanding that the VVPAT slips be counted and the result be matched with the EVM's electronic vote data in case of at least half of the polling stations in every assembly constituency in case of state assembly polls and at least half of the polling stations in every assembly segments of a parliamentary constituency in case of Lok Sabha polls.

The EC had earlier said the poll results would be delayed by six days if it had to implement what the opposition parties had been asking for.