View: EC's prosecution of complaining voters against natural justice

The move by the Election Commission (EC) to prosecute voters who complain about their votes cast on the electronic voting machine (EVM) going to the wrong candidate is the height of intolerance and negation of all tenets of democracy that the poll panel is supposed to uphold. Further, the commission is setting a dangerous precedent by asking ordinary voters to technologically prove that the machine can misbehave.
The commission proclaims that the EVM with voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) is the only option for India as it is “auditable, transparent, accurate, secure and helps reduce human error”. It is a different matter that the commission is often forced to change the machines due to malfunctioning.

Even if the chance of error is one in a million, the EVM cannot be considered a foolproof device, because an infallible system will not allow even one mistake to happen. It does not matter if the error occurred on the very first depression of the button or its millionth use. Either way, the result is the same. The fact that the machine behaved perfectly for the rest of the times is of no avail. If the makers of the machine could identify why this happens, it is patent that they would have eliminated the problem.

Under the commission’s EVM rules, if a voter complains that the paper slip generated by the VVPAT printer has shown the name or symbol of a candidate other than the one he or she voted for, the presiding officer shall obtain a written declaration from the voter as to the allegation, after warning the person about the consequence of making a false declaration.

Then a test vote is done in the presence of the complainant and the candidates or polling agents who may be present in the polling station, and the paper slip generated by the printer is observed. If the printed result matches the test vote, the allegation is taken as proved wrong and the complainant is handed over to the police for prosecution. The punishment could be Rs 10,000 in fine or six months in jail.

The commission is making a fatal mistake in assuming that a defective device will be consistent with the error. If a device is consistently showing the same error, then it should be possible to identify the cause and rectify the mistake. But that is not the case. The error may be occurring at random and there is no guarantee that there may be an error the next time.

So, when a test vote is taken, the commission is assuming that an error that may be occurring once in a million button depressions in the former scenario must necessarily happen in the test vote. This is the most skewed argument ever and amounts to challenging the intelligence of the common man. It is not just intolerance, but arrogance unbound.

The very fact that the rules provide for the stoppage of polling if there is discrepancy in the test result and the pressed button implies there is a possibility of such an eventuality. So, the commission itself is admitting the possibility of error.

We have heard how the other day, former Assam DGP Harekrishna Deka decided not to complain about his vote going to an unintended candidate in the paper trail for fear of risking six months in jail. Down south in Kerala, on the same day, a 21-year-old man was arrested for his complaint that the paper trail showed a different name than the one he voted for as the test vote proved him wrong. Unfortunately for him, the machine probably played truant when he voted and was back to its own self when the test vote was taken.

It is time that the EC’s bluff is called and the poll panel forced to see reason. It should either get its things right with EVMs, or agree to make amends. The Supreme Court has another opportunity before it to make an effective intervention when it takes up the petition submitted by 21 opposition parties requesting that it order the EC to verify at least 50% EVMs using the VVPAT machines in view of widespread occurrence of malfunctioning by the machine in the rounds of polling already completed.

The commission is not averse to sending complaining voters to jail, but is soft towards netas who flagrantly violate the norms although it has been mandated to act against such breaches.

It cut a sorry figure in the Supreme Court last week when the court pulled it up for failure to act on the plea that it did not have enough powers and set a deadline to take action.