EVMs Gave Extra Votes To BJP In Kerala: Prashant Bhushan Tells SC, Court Asks ECI To Explain

According to the report cited in the court by Bhushan, LDF and UDF candidates' agents have alleged that at least four EVMs erroneously registered votes in favour of BJP during mock polling in Kasaragod

The Supreme Court on Thursday resumed hearing the plea seeking 100% cross verification of VVPATs with EVMs. Advocate Prashant Bhushan Appearing for Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) told the Supreme Court that at least four electronic voting machines (EVM) erroneously registered votes in favour of BJP during mock polling in Kasaragod on Wednesday, April 17.

According to the news report cited in the court by Bhushan, LDF and UDF candidates' agents have alleged that at least four EVMs erroneously registered votes in favour of BJP during mock polling in Kasaragod on April 17.

According to the Manorama report, a complaint has also been filed by LDF candidate and CPM leader M V Balakrishnan with the District Collector Inbasekar K, designated as the District Election Officer. The UDF candidate Rajmohan Unnithan's agent Muhammed Nasar Cherkalam Abdulla has also urged the assistant returning officer (ARO) in Kasaragod Lok Sabha constituency to change the erring machines.

A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta resumed hearing the case today and asked the ECI to check allegations.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard the pleas seeking counting and cross-verification of 100% VVPAT paper slips with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The petitioners moved the top court against the present system of counting VVPATs in 5 randomly selected polling booths per Assembly. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has termed the demand by the petitioners as "regressive" and equivalent to reverting to paper ballot system. The court today heard the petitioners and adjourned the hearing till Thursday. 

The petition filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) in 2023, stated that the current practice by the ECI to count the electronically recorded votes in all of the EVMs and cross-verify EVMs with the VVPATs in only 5 randomly selected polling booth per assembly constituency is not sufficient.

On Tuesday, Advocate Prashant Bhushan began his argument and told the court that the EVMs can be manipulated. Bhushan said, "we aren’t saying they are manipulated or have been. We are saying that they can be manipulated as both EVM and VVPAT have two kinds of chips. First memory in the chip that can be programmed and a flash memory used during symbol loading."

Bhushan further said that most European countries have done away with EVM as they found them unreliable. He contended that EVMs are programmable and so a malicious program can be installed.

A Bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta heard the case and posed several questions to the petitioners. The bench also rejected the proposal to go back to the ballot paper system. Today, the bench is hearing ECI's submission.