You can have 250 people to quickly count through VVPATs: Sanjay Hegde

The election is tomorrow: Maninder Singh

Tampering is not possible: Maninder Singh

The Supreme Court has reserved judgement with regard to a petition seeking 100% verification of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) with the votes cast in the EVM (Electronic Voting Machine) among other demands. “12 lac slips to be counted…how is counting done even today? it is done parallelly…on each legislative assembly. Between 14 and 18 rounds of counting, all votes are counted electronically. Process gets over by 2 PM. Each table has about 3 electoral officers. You have 250 people to quickly count through VVPATs. Counting can’t take 13 days. Counting is immediate. Audit can take time. There should be a separate audit which would then add greater credibility to the counting process. Please consider what safeguards can be put in today,’ Advocate Sanjay Hegde said arguing in favour of the petitioners. 

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The bench consisting of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Dutta posed multiple questions pertaining to the technicalities of the device and the procedure followed to Advocate Maninder Singh representing the Election Commission of India (ECI). “The election is tomorrow. We have to join our hands to ensure that no aspersions are cast. Your Lordship is dealing with a constitutional authority, exercise can’t be mathematical. Their prayer for ballot paper voting is a retrograde suggestion. Principle of stare decisis applies. No request can be entertained once that issue has been decided. Tampering is not possible. There is proper check mechanism,” Singh stated.