SC directs Election Commission to reply to plea seeking verification of EVM data

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Election Commission to respond to a petition by the non-profit Association for Democratic Reforms seeking verification of the burnt memory and symbol loading units of Electronic Voting Machines, Live Law reported.

A bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta also told the poll panel not to erase or reload data on EVMs during verification.

The burnt memory in EVMs stores election data permanently, while a symbol loading unit uploads candidate details to the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail, or VVPAT, system. The court had ruled in April 2024 that symbol loading units must be sealed for 45 days after elections and that candidates who placed second or third could seek access to burnt memory.

The burnt memory of EVMs and VVPATs refers to the devices’s non-volatile memory, where data is stored permanently even when the machine is switched off. It is a key repository of votes cast during an election.

The VVPAT is a machine that prints a paper slip of the candidate’s name, serial number and their party symbol after people have cast their vote. To avoid election fraud, it displays the paper slip for seven seconds so that citizens can check if their vote has been cast correctly.

The bench was...

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