Dimapur, Oct. 25 (EMN): The Gauhati High Court Kohima Bench has directed the Election Commission of India to ‘take all possible steps’ to conduct the 2018 Legislative Assembly elections with the use of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) along with Electronic Voting Machines (EVM).
This was informed through a press release by the media cell of the NPCC, the political party that filed the present petition in the court.
It started that the order was in the context of "W.P. (C) No. 110(K) of 2017 with the NPCC as petitioner and ECI and Anr. as Respondents" wherein the NPCC had petitioned to discontinue the use of EVMs without the VVPAT machines; and also that if elections cannot be conducted with the EVMs and VVPATs together, the ballot papers should be used in place of the EVM.In reply the court had directed the ECI to ensure all possible steps are taken to conduct the upcoming elections with the use of VVPAT.
"The VVPAT machine is an independent verification printer machine which is attached to the EVM to allow a voter to verify if the vote has gone to the intended candidate. When a voter presses a button in the EVM, the VVPAT prints a paper receipt bearing the poll symbol and name of the candidate. After being visible to the voter from a glass case within the VVPAT for seven seconds, the ballot slip will be cut and dropped into the drop box within the VVPAT machine and a beep will be heard," the press release further added.
