A voter, by pressing the Electronic Voting Machine, will know who he is voting for in an election through a printing slip which will display the name of the candidate and go into a box, the Election Commission informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Senior counsel Ashok Desai, appearing for the EC, made this submission before a Bench of Justices P. Sathasivam and Ranjan Gogoi, hearing a petition filed by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy for a direction to introduce EVMs with voter verification slips.
Mr. Desai said the EC had developed the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail System (VVPAT). Field trials had been conducted and certain improvements were required, and a meeting in this regard would take place on February 4. Subsequently, there would be an all-party meeting and the voter paper trail would be introduced in stages, initially in a by-election and then in one or two State elections.
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On the request of counsel, the Bench posted further hearing to April 9.
Dr. Swamy sought a direction to prohibit the EC from using EVMs unless these were incorporated with a paper trail. This petition was dismissed by the Delhi High Court. The appeal is directed against this judgment.