Supreme Court: 'News of EVM malfunction during mock poll in Kasaragod, Kerala is false', ECI tells the apex court
Supreme Court: The apex court was hearing petitions filed for full verification of votes cast through EVMs through Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT). During this, the Election Commission said that the news of EVM malfunction during the mock poll was false.
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Tomorrow, April 19, is the first day of voting for 102 seats across 21 states in the Lok Sabha elections of 2024. Politics is conducted on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in such circumstances. Regarding reports of malfunctions in electronic voting machines during test elections in certain locations, the Election Commission denied claims made in the Supreme Court that variations were observed in the quantity of VVPAT slips and the number of votes cast in EVMs during the test poll in Kasaragod, Kerala. One vote was found to be excessive during the investigation.
Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) petitions seeking complete verification of votes cast using electronic voting machines were being heard by the highest court. VVPAP is an independent vote verification system that enables an elector to see whether his or her vote was cast correctly.
Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Nitish Kumar Vyas told a bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Dutta, 'These reports are false. We got the allegations investigated by the District Collector and it came to light that these were false allegations. We will submit a detailed report to the court.
Vyas was present in the courtroom to apprise the bench about the functioning of EVMs. Earlier in the day, the top court asked senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for it, to look into the issue. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner NGO Association for Democratic Reforms, told the court that there were reports that during the mock poll, the EVMs had shown an additional Vote has been shown.
The CPI(M)-led LDF on Thursday said it will lodge a complaint with the Election Commission over the alleged wrongful recording of votes in favour of the BJP candidate in some voting machines during a mock poll held in Kasaragod Lok Sabha constituency.
Senior CPI(M) leader KP Satish Chandran alleged that there were instances where two or three voting machines malfunctioned during the mock poll on Wednesday. A complaint regarding this matter will be lodged before the Commission.
CPI(M) leader MV Balakrishnan is contesting the Kasaragod seat in the Lok Sabha elections to be held on April 26 against Congress leader and sitting MP Rajmohan Unnithan and BJP's ML Ashwini.
