As India is amidst its electoral festival, many issues have made the politician’s mics hot. One of these is the issue of the credibility of EVMs, but it’s not new. Since EVMs came into use in the 2004 election, they have been questioned by political parties across the spectrum and especially by the opposition. In India, EVMs were introduced on an experimental basis in a limited way in the 1982 election. They were universally taken into use in the General Elections of 2004, which ended the era of ballot papers. The Election Commission of India has given rights to manufacture EVMs only to two companies, i.e., BEL and ECIL. These companies use some secret code in the EVMs, which is impossible to tamper with. Many people have demanded several times for the ECI to publicize this code, which was ultimately refused. During a recent verdict, the Honourable Supreme Court also rejected this demand by the petitioner.
In the General Elections of 2004 and 2009, the BJP was a big critic of the usage of EVMs and often accused the then UPA government of tampering with the EVMs to win the election. Now it’s Congress which is in the forefront of questioning the credibility of EVMs, which it once used to defend. The leaders of the BJP, who once questioned the credibility of EVMs, have now started to defend it. The story does not only end between BJP and Congress; AAP is another big critic of EVMs. Despite the fact that AAP won Assembly Elections in Delhi and Punjab with an overwhelming majority using the same EVMs, in Delhi and Punjab, no questions were raised as the EVMs worked perfectly fine.
This hypocritical behavior is not only confined to AAP. Congress didn’t question the credibility of EVMs when it won Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh Assembly Elections recently. Recently, the Supreme Court also rejected the plea for 100% verification of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) with the EVM, which was declined by the Supreme Court. While acknowledging that voters have the fundamental right to ensure that their votes are accurately recorded, the Court asserted that such a right cannot be equated with the right to 100% cross-verification of EVM votes with VVPAT slips or the right to physically access the VVPAT slips.
The introduction of VVPATs was also made possible with the help of the Judiciary. In its ruling in 2013 in Subramanian Swamy v. Election Commission of India, the top court held that a paper trail is an indispensable requirement for free and fair elections. Later, in 2019, while dealing with a plea demanding 50% cross-verification of EVMs, the court held that 5 random EVMs will be cross-verified. At present, returning to the older ballot system, as demanded by some people and political parties, would be a regressive step in the electoral process. Limitations of the ballot papers are well-documented unlike EVMs. The Supreme Court, while hearing the petition by ADR to bounce back to the ballot system, said, “In the Indian context, keeping in view the vast size of the Indian electorate of nearly 97 crore, the number of candidates who contest the elections, the number of polling booths where voting is held, and the problems faced with ballot papers, we would be undoing the electoral reforms by directing reintroduction of the ballot papers. EVMs offer significant advantages. They have effectively eliminated booth capturing by restricting the rate of vote casting to 4 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. Furthermore, EVMs reduce paper usage and alleviate logistical challenges. Finally, they provide administrative convenience by expediting the counting process and minimizing errors,” Justice Sanjiv Khanna emphasized.
Political parties being overly critical of the electoral system has done nothing but have generated a sense of distrust and question in the subconscious minds of millions of voters across the country. As a result, despite numerous efforts of the Election Commission to increase voter turnout, the turnout in the first two phases of the election has declined. There may be some more reasons behind it. The Election Commission of India has always stood for and defended EVMs and has even termed them as non-tamperable and absolutely secure and safe. Speeches by politicians make a huge impact on the masses and they should refrain from saying anything that generates distrust among the voters. Healthy debates on issues are needed for democracy, but being overly critical and that too without any proof is not conducive to the democratic function of the country. Ultimately, maintaining the integrity of the electoral system is crucial for upholding democracy and ensuring that citizens have faith in the electoral process. Political leaders play a pivotal role in fostering trust through responsible rhetoric and adherence to democratic norms.
