CHENNAI: The DMK has moved a writ petition in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) not to place the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) device between the balloting unit and control unit of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), while raising concerns that such technical arrangement would lead to corruption of data.
The petition, filed by DMK organisation secretary RS Bharathi, said that in such a set up the output from the VVPAT will be the input for the control unit.
“This opens a myriad of technical possibilities to corrupt the integrity of the data that is fed to the control unit from the balloting unit,” the ex-MP said in the petition.
He noted that the RP Act, 1951, and the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, does not allow the printer to be directly connected to the control unit and such arrangement tampers with the integrity of the data fed to the control unit.
“Proper and transparent functioning of the EVMs is central to substantive fairness in the conduct of free and fair polls which is a part of the basic structure of the Constitution,” Bharathi said.