Chasing paper trails

Supreme Court puts VVPAT controversy to rest

As Indians queue up to vote in one million polling stations around the country, the Supreme Court has set at rest concerns about the credibility of electronic voting machines (EVMs). On the same day as the second phase of polling, the court delivered a verdict rejecting the plea by the non-profit organisation Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) for 100 per cent cross-verification of EVMs by a manually counted voter verifiable paper audit trail, or VVPAT. In separate but concurring judgments, the two-judge Bench chose to retain the current provisions of counting the VVPAT slips of five randomly selected Assembly constituencies