A long way from 1984: when SC junked ECI’s first EVM experiment
- April 27, 2024
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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A long way from 1984: when SC junked ECI’s first EVM experiment
Subject: Polity
Sec: Elections
Context:
- The Supreme Court on Friday put the stamp of its unequivocal approval on electronic voting machines (EVMs).
More on news:
- Forty years ago, when a voting machine was first used at the Parur Assembly constituency in Kerala, the court had set aside the election and ordered a repoll in 50 of the 85 polling stations.
The first experiment:
- In August 1980, the Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL) presented political parties with a prototype voting machine.
- In 1982, the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced that the machine would be used as a pilot project in 50 out of 84 polling stations in the Parur constituency during that year’s Assembly elections in Kerala.
- The central government had not sanctioned the use of the machines.
- ECI used its constitutional powers under Article 324, which gives it the power of “superintendence, direction, and control” over elections.
Supreme court views:
- The ECI argued that its powers under Article 324 would supersede any Act of Parliament, and if there was conflict between the law and the ECI’s powers, the law would yield to the Commission.
- The Bench unanimously held that introducing voting machines was a legislative power that only Parliament and state legislatures could exercise (Articles 326 and 327), not the ECI.
- The ECI also relied on Section 59 of The Representation of the People Act, 1951 and Rule 49 of The Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961.
- Section 59 says votes shall be given by ballot in such manner as may be prescribed, and Rule states the ECI can publish a notification to direct that the method of voting by ballot shall be followed…at such polling stations as may be specified in the notification.
- In 1988, the election law was amended to insert Section 61A, which allowed the ECI to specify the constituencies where votes would be cast and recorded by voting machines.
- In a judgment which coincides with the second phase of the general elections to the Lok Sabha, also refused petitioners’ suggestion to hand over paper slips from Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units to electors to take a leisurely look before inserting them into the ballot boxes.
- The court refused to intervene against Section 49 MA of the Conduct of Election Rules, which penalises a voter whose complaint of mismatch (of votes cast and votes counted) would attract penal proceedings initiated by poll officials under Section 177 of the Indian Penal Code for submitting false information.
- The Bench further declined petitioners’, NGO Association for Democratic Reforms and Arun Kumar Agarwal, argument to direct the cross-verification of 100% EVMs and VVPATs across the country. Currently, only five percent of EVM-VVPAT counts are randomly verified in any given Assembly constituency. Earlier it had been one percent, until the top court had intervened.
- The court suggested to the Election Commission (EC) to explore the possibility of devising an “electronic machine” to count the VVPAT paper slips. This direction may have been prompted by an affidavit submitted by the EC during the hearing of the case. The poll body had explained that it takes an hour to manually count the VVPAT slips of a single polling station.
Timeline of EVMs:
- The Commission in December 1977 mooted the idea of EVM to overcome certain problems associated with use of ballot papers and taking advantage of development of technology so that voters cast their votes correctly without any resultant ambiguity and removing the possibilities of invalid votes totally.
- MB Haneefa invented the first Indian voting machine in 1980.
- It was first used in 1981 in the by-election to North Paravur Assembly Constituency of Kerala in 50 polling stations.
- The EVMs were commissioned in 1989 by Election Commission of India in collaboration with Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited.
- The law was amended by the Parliament in December, 1988 and a new section 61A was inserted in the Representation of the People Act, 1951 empowering the Commission to use voting machines.
- The amended provision came into force with effect from 15th March, 1989.
- A decade later, EVMs were used at 16 Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Delhi. This was expanded to 46 Lok Sabha seats in 1999 and, in 2001, state elections in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, and West Bengal were entirely conducted using EVMs.
- By the 2004 Lok Sabha election, EVMs had completely replaced ballot papers at all 543 seats.
Advantage of EVMs
- The EVMs have effectively eliminated booth capturing by restricting the rate of vote casting to four votes per minute, thereby prolonging the time needed and thus check insertion of bogus votes. EVMs have eliminated invalid votes, which were a major issue with paper ballots and had often sparked disputes during the counting process.
- Further, it noted that EVMs reduce paper usage and alleviate logistical challenges. Finally, they provide administrative convenience by expediting the counting process and minimising errors.
- Election officials have complete control of the polling process.
- After the pressing of the ‘CLOSE’ button on the control unit [of the EVM], there is no possibility of voting. By pressing the ‘TOTAL’ button on the control unit at any time, the total number of votes polled up to the time of pressing the button is displayed, without indicating the candidate-wise result of votes,” the judgment noted.
- The court highlighted that the microcontrollers of the EVMs are programmed at the manufacturing stage. Their original programme is agnostic both political party and candidate-wise. This process is done way before the elections and it is impossible to know the serial number of any candidate in advance. Thus, it is not possible to pre-program the EVM in a spurious manner.