The Supreme Court, on November 26, 2024, dismissed a petition seeking the removal of electronic voting machines and the return to paper ballots, saying it was hypocritical to cry foul when one loses in the political arena.
“EVMs are tampered with when you lose and fine if you win?” asked Justice Vikram Nath as he dismissed a petition filed by evangelist K.A. Paul, who wanted the court to pass a judicial order for India to use paper ballots instead of electronic voting machines.
Justice Nath added that the petitioner wanted to turn the court into a “political arena.” However, Paul insisted that he was playing no politics and pointed out in his petition that the paper ballot system was followed in countries worldwide. “You’re hearing my petition on Constitution Day,” the petitioner said.
After its loss last week, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) has planned a national protest against the credibility of EVMs, which it blames for its defeat. The MVA—the Congress and the Shiv Sena and NCP factions led by Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar—reportedly also plans to approach the court asking for a return to ballot papers.
Electronic Voting Machines have long been a contentious issue in India, with many attributing the BJP라이브 바카라 landslide wins in several states to “rigged” machines. However, earlier this year, the apex court upheld the EVM polls while refusing to revive paper ballots. In its March 2017 issue, The Crumbling Edifice of Caste Calculus, 바카라 examined the claims around the tampering of EVMs.
“The weakness of the ballot paper system is well known and documented. Keeping in view the vast size of the Indian electorate of nearly 97 crore, the number of candidates who contest the elections, the number of polling booths where voting is held, and the problems faced with ballot papers, we would be undoing the electoral reforms by directing reintroduction of the ballot papers. EVMs offer significant advantages,” the Supreme Court said in its April 2024 verdict.
At the time of the controversial EVM case before SC, Madhur Sharma had examined the controversies around EVMs for 바카라.
In an affidavit filed before the SC in September 2023, the Election Commission of India had assured the court that the machines were air-gapped machines that could not be tampered with or hacked into. EVMs are “totally stand-alone machines having one-time programmable chips”, the ECI said in its 450-page affidavit.
