EVMs get SC vote

THERE is no going back to paper ballot voting — this is the Supreme Court’s clear message to all the doubting Thomases who are questioning the reliability of electronic voting machines (EVMs). Dismissing a plea seeking to revert to the paper mode in elections across the country, the court has rightly observed that allegations of tampering with EVMs crop up only when people lose polls. The Congress and its allies are blaming the voting machine for their rout in the Maharashtra Assembly polls. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has gone to the extent of calling for a national movement like Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatras to “bring back the ballot paper”. Ironically, the grand old party has no issues with EVMs in Jharkhand, where it has retained power as a member of the JMM-led alliance.

The use of EVMs over the past two decades in parliamentary and Assembly elections has undeniably fast-tracked and streamlined the electoral process. No wonder Elon Musk has lauded India for counting 640 million votes in a day, while lamenting the ‘tragic’ delay in the California results of the US presidential election. However, it’s not the machine’s speed but its accuracy that has repeatedly come under a cloud. In 2017, the Election Commission of India (ECI) had dared political parties to hack its EVMs, but none picked up the gauntlet. The detractors quietened down a bit when the VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) system was rolled out for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on the SC’s directions. However, the naysayers have again been making noises in recent years, demanding 100 per cent tallying of VVPAT slips with EVM votes rather than confining the exercise to just five randomly selected polling booths per constituency.

Losers should look within instead of trying to peer into every nook and cranny of the EVM. Attempts to vitiate the legitimacy and sanctity of the electoral process should be resisted by all stakeholders, including voters. Public trust, after all, is the bedrock of democracy.