NEW DELHI: Two weeks after the Supreme Court ordered the Election Commission to increase the random matching of paper trail machine slips with the EVM (Electronic Voting Machine) count in each Assembly segment to five booths, 21 opposition parties on Wednesday approached the court seeking review of its order.
The parties reiterated their request for matching of at least 50 per cent of the voter-verifiable paper trail (VVPAT) slips, saying the order on five booths was grossly insufficient. “The petitioners submit that the aforesaid increase to a mere 2 per cent is not sufficient and will not make any substantial difference to the situation that existed prior to the passing of the impugned order.”
The petition argued that Indian democracy could not be left at the mercy of EVM programmers, adding there were reports of large-scale tampering and selective malfunctioning of EVMs in the first two phases of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
As per procedure, after votes are cast, the polling station where VVPAT slips would be matched with EVM results would be decided by a draw of lots in the presence of candidates.The April 8 Supreme Court order meant that five polling stations, instead of one, will be picked for random matching. It could delay in the announcement of results by an hour, the Election Commission said.