Can't change EVM symbol loading unit for mock vote: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Wednesday introduced additional layers of scrutiny in the amended technical standard operating procedure for testing the integrity of electronic voting machines (EVMs) by ordering that if a candidate wanted to conduct mock voting on EVMs, then the machine's symbol loading unit could not be changed.

A bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta said, "In case a candidate wants to conduct a mock poll on the EVMs for testing its integrity (during polling), he may request in writing. The vote count on the EVMs, already used for voting, would then be displayed to the candidates and then erased. The symbol loading unit, used during the poll, would be kept intact while conducting the mock polls."

While accepting the poll panel's amended technical SOP explained by senior advocate Maninder Singh, the bench said it was satisfied with the SOP which included self-diagnosis for confirming fidelity of the burnt programme and mutual authentication when EVMs are connected to other EVMs.

However, it said engineers of Bharat Electrical Ltd and Electronics Corporation of India Ltd will check and certify that the software and burnt memory of voting machines are not tampered with.

EC said, "In the proposed amendment, the diagnostic check of EVM units will be done and thereafter, the engineers deployed for the process shall inspect the units and give a certificate that the EVMs had not been tampered with or modified."