ECI Confirms 4 Crore VVPAT Slips Verified with No Mismatches, Declares EVM Tampering Impossible to Supreme Court

The Election Commission of India mentioned in its notice to the Supreme Court that the presence of a flaw between the number of seats assigned to EVMs and VVPATs is not present yet.


The ECI stated that about 4 crores of VVPAT slips have been matched with EVM votes and these were found to be in strict compliance with the EVM inputs. The statement was given in reply to the Court justices when they ruled on petitions demanding a rechecking of all the VVPAT information against EVMs.


The bench, with 2 judges – Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta – has now decided to reserve its judgment on the issue after today’s session.Below are the questions raised by the Court and the responses provided by the ECI:

1. Is this poll unit and VVPAT storage area of all the three units as well as the BU and CU?

The EVM is made up of the constituent components of Ballot Unit (BU), Control Unit (CU) and VVPAT and these are all kept in Strong Rooms post the elections. These units are sealed under candidates’ or agents’ view and are retained in Strong Room for a minimum of 45 days as per period for filling the election petitions.

2. Is the VVPAT software intermediate in symbol loading?

The purpose of VVPAT is only to print out the content; it is not the voting machine itself. VVPAT does not rely on any software to transfer symbols from the Symbol Loading Unit (SLU) since the process is a completely manual activity. No program facilitates uploading of software to VVPAT via SLU. The loading process is based on BMP file format that carries only numbers and characters for candidate name and identifying symbols. Seeing that file is in different format the VVPAT won’t load it. The process of checking votes that is held out in the presence of candidates or their attorneys and are displayed on a monitor that is very large.

3. Parties, candidates and offices of electoral commissions supervise and manage the supply and installation of EVMs and VVPAT machines.

As the flowchart of the entire operation is depicted in the appendix, from procuring machines from BEL or ECIL to storage again after counting, is provided in the form of an annexure. The EVM manual describes the detailed and related supportive procedures for reference.

4. Can an officer outvote the outcomes of the polling station on the Polling day?

Polling authorities will not be able to see the results as they touch the button of "Results" button. The control unit is sealed before the beginning of polling, thus limiting the would-be cheating parties' access to the results until the poll is closed.

5. Could there be a case of tampering of polls after electronic voting machines (EVMS) has been played a role?

Hacking or changing the EVMs is simply impossible before, during, or after the elections. Finally, the results come to an end with the Control Unit turns off, while the Ballot Unit is walled and sealed separately with polling agent's signatures. The Presiding Office gives each polling agent a copy the total votes registered. The idea of counting is that when the differences arise, the slips of paper from VVPAT can be counted under Rule 56(D).