Team Herald
PANJIM: While leaders like Churchill Alemao have been in the forefront demanding a total replacement of EVMs with paper ballots for counting there is a growing scepticism about the EVM process by politicians. The issue is again gaining ground with just a week left for the counting of votes of the February 14 Assembly elections.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) Benaulim candidate Churchill Alemao was the first to have suspected possible manipulation of EVMs by some forces in order to benefit certain candidates. He had demanded that paper trails should be counted to bring more transparency.
Legal luminaries are of the opinion that the Election Commission of India (ECI) should provide enough safeguards and build confidence among the voters in both – the electoral system and technology.
Former MLA and Advocate Radharao Gracias said that the Supreme Court has already permitted randomly counting of VVPAT slips from five polling booths and if only discrepancy is found, then to count slips of all EVMs from all the booths so as to allay apprehensions.
Reacting to Alemao’s fears that EVMs could be set and manipulated, Gracias said that since electronic gadgets are man-made, there is scope for mischief. But that does not mean that EVMs could be manipulated.
Adv Cleofato Almeida Coutinho said, “According to me there is scope for manipulation. As far as possible when the victory margin between the winning and losing candidate is narrow then VVPAT slips of all polling stations should be counted. The results may be delayed by few hours. Finally it is the issue of building voters confidence in technology. The Election Commission of India should also take adequate measures to ensure voters confidence in entire electoral system.”
Adv Amit Palekar, of AAP said “If Israeli spyware Pegasus could do it (snooping) then it is possible. I am not doubting EVMs but technology can be manipulated. Voters doubt electoral process because the way it is conducted by the EC. The elections are not conducted in free and fair manner and I’m not happy the way polling was held in St Cruz constituency.”
Adv Abhijit Gosavi said, “The issue is already decided by Supreme Court, who had provided adequate protection. The voter gets few second to check whether the vote cast by him/her has gone to their right candidate and if not they can bring it to the notice of the presiding officer. Every electronic device can be manipulated and it could be the reasons for developed countries reverting back to ballot papers. USA is still using ballot papers for elections.”
The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) said EC will follow the established procedure of counting voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips for the mandatory five polling stations per Assembly segment at the end of the entire counting process to be held on March 10.
Speaking to Herald, Additional CEO Narayan Sawant said that CEO will follow the procedure laid down by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for counting of VVPAT slips.
“The Supreme Court has ruled that VVPAT slips of five randomly selected polling stations in each Assembly segment will be matched with the results shown in the respective EVMs. We will follow this procedure. Counting of each VVPAT slip is not feasible,” Sawant explained.
The verification of VVPAT slips is conducted inside a secured VVPAT counting booth in the counting hall with access to authorised personnel only. Any counting table in the hall can be converted into VVPAT counting booth after completing the EVM vote counting.
“In case of any discrepancy between the VVPAT count and the EVM results, the printed paper slips count is taken as final,” the additional CEO said.
There are total 1722 polling stations across 40-Assembly constituencies.
Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) President Girish Chodankar and MGP Chief Deepak Dhavalikar too supported the demand put forth by Alemao.
“Counting of each VVPAT based voter slip might not be possible but rather than random five VVPATs, CEO should count at least ten,” Chodankar said, adding, “EVM manipulation has been taking place ever since it was introduced in 2012 polls.”
Dhavalikar recommended that the VVPAT slips be recognized as the ballot paper and effort should be made to count maximum number of slip to ensure complete transparency. “In the 2017 by-election, I faced defeat due to a very small margin. In such situation, VVPAT count has to be there,” he said.
