Introduction of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT)
Further information: Voter-verified paper audit trailOn 8 October 2010 Election Commission appointed an expert technical committee headed by Prof PV Indiresan (former Director of IIT-M) when at an all-party meeting majority of political parties backed the proposal to have a VVPAT in EVMs to counter the charges of tampering. The committee was tasked to examine the possibility of introduction of paper trail so that voters can get a printout that will show symbol of the party to which the vote was cast. After studying the issue, the committee recommended introduction of VVPAT system.
On 21 June 2011, Election Commission accepted Indiresan committee's recommendations and decided to conduct field trials of the system. On 26 July 2011, field trial of VVPAT system was conducted at Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, Cherrapunjee in Meghalaya, East Delhi in Delhi and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan.
Just 2 days after Delhi High Court judgement saying EVMs are not "tamper-proof", Election Commission on 19 January 2012 ordered Electronics Corporation of India Limited and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) to make EVMs that will generate a "paper trail" of the vote cast. BEL CMD Anil Kumar said: "The new EVMs' paper trail should make the poll process safer and tamper-proof. EC has given us its requirement for EVMs and work is on to incorporate new features. The EVM software will be modified and a printer attached to it. When you cast a vote, the serial number and "some data" will be generated as a printout. It is to ensure that there is no malpractice in the voting system. " It appears that, when the voter presses the button for the candidate of his choice in the EVM, a paper ballot with the serial number, name and symbol of the candidate will be printed. The printouts will be used later to cross check the voting data stored in the EVMs. Talking about other features in new EVMs, he said the machines will be more rugged and smaller in size but with more computing power.
Read more about this topic: Indian Voting Machines
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