EC releases technical instructions to check EVM, VVPAT burnt memory; no word over mismatch

• Having released the technical standard operating procedure (SOP) for checking and verification of the burnt memory of EVMs and VVPATs on Tuesday, the Election Commission was yet to decide what would happen if there is a mismatch between the EVM and VVPAT counts during verification.

Highlights:

• Acting on a Supreme Court judgment, the EC released the technical SOP, which says if the results of a mock poll tallies with the VVPAT slips, then there is no tampering. What would happen if there is a mismatch remains to be seen. “It would depend on what the winning margin was in that particular constituency,” an EC official said, adding that countermanding the election was not ruled out as a possibility.
• The Supreme Court had on April 26 ordered the EC to facilitate checking and verification of the burnt memory or microcontrollers of up to 5% of the EVMs and VVPATs of an Assembly constituency or Assembly segment of a Lok Sabha constituency on the written request of the candidates who come in second and third in that seat.
• The EC had released the administrative SOP for the same on June 1 and has received requests from 11 candidates in the 2024 Lok Sabha, Odisha Assembly and Andhra Pradesh Assembly polls.
• “There is no progress from the established procedure of mock polls that are conducted before polling anyway. The judgment said the burnt memory or microcontrollers shall be checked and verified. There is no mention of this in the SOP,”
• As per the technical SOP, which was prepared by the two PSUs that manufacture EVMs, BEL and ECIL, a mock poll of upto 1,400 votes per machine would be conducted and if the results tally with the VVPAT slips, then the burnt memory or microcontrollers would have passed the test.
• Mock polls, of at least 50 votes per machine, are conducted on poll day in the presence of polling agents of candidates, as well as self-diagnosis and mutual authentication of the three parts of the EVM-VVPAT system.

Prelims Takeaway:

• EVM
• VVPAT