EC rejects plea seeking 50% sample match of VVPATs

New Delhi, March 29 (IANS) The Election Commission on Friday rejected the plea by 21 opposition parties seeking 50 per cent sample matching of the EVMs with the corresponding Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs), and said that it should be allowed to continue with the present system.

Seeking the dismissal of the plea by the 21 opposition parties, the Election Commission in its response said that the plea "does not raise any ground or base for altering" the existing system of sample checking and urged the court that the "present system ... for the imminent elections be continued ..."

The EC said this in response to a notice by the top court on the opposition parties plea for increasing the sample matching of the EVMs with the corresponding VVPATs.

The top court had sought the EC's response on March 25 when it had slammed the poll panel for insisting that there was no need for increasing the sample matching of the EVMs with the corresponding VVPATs.

Referring to the grievances raised by the opposition parties and the relief sought, the poll panel has said that "after due studies and tests it has arrived at the conclusion that the method as presently adopted has been found to be most suitable".

The EC has said that it was open to any other suggestion that it might not have considered for the future elections as the conduct of free and fair elections was the ultimate goal.

Finding nothing new in the plea by the 21 opposition parties, the poll panel in its response has said: "...issues raised in the instant petitions are matters that have already been considered, studied and determined by the Election Commission and have since culminated in adopting the course of conduct of the imminent elections in the present manner."

Pointing to the advantage of using EVMs, the EC has said that "EVMs have completely eliminated the problem of invalid votes, which were in many cases more than the winning margin in the constituency."

The poll panel has further said that the use of EVMs has substantially reduced the incidence of booth capturing during elections.

It has further pointed that the use of EVMs have reduced the incidence of manual error in counting, which was responsible for various disputes and demands for re-count.