New Delhi: The Election Commission on Friday declared that the reason behind the malfunctioning of a large number of voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines during the recently held by-elections to the Kairana and Bhandara-Gondiya parliamentary constituencies was due to the “failure of contrast sensor” and “failure of length sensor” and that both these errors were “mainly caused by excessive exposure to illumination in the polling station”.

However, past and present EC officials present at a conclave on elections in India expressed surprise at this ‘finding’, since the VVPATs have undergone extensive tests under varying conditions in the past without malfunctioning.

Failure despite all-weather tests surprises former CEC

Speaking at the conclave on “EVMs, Election Funding and the Election Commission” organised by a group of retired civil servants and armed forces veterans at the Indian Social Institute here, former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi noted with concern that VVPAT machines were failing despite undergoing tests in all kinds of weather conditions.

Quraishi, in whose term as CEC the testing of VVPATs had taken place from 2011 till their introduction in an election in Nagaland in September 2013, recalled how tests had first been conducted in wet and humid Kerala, dry and hot Jaisalmer, the cold high-altitude of Ladakh, rain-soaked Cherrapunji and Delhi. He said that since many machines had malfunctioned after the first round of tests, the necessary changes were made and they were again tested in all these five different locations.

Wondering how the Election Commission was now saying that these machines malfunctioned during the polls on May 28 due to heat, he said it appeared unlikely to be the cause as these machines had been tested in the extreme heat of Jaisalmer, which was hotter than the constituencies where they are said to have not worked properly.

Quraishi for sampling more VVPAT votes after every poll

Quraishi was also of the view that when it came to VVPATs, there was a need to sample more of them after every election as the current practice of taking the count of just one polling station in every constitutency was too little. While the Supreme Court has not directed the EC on what percentage of the VVPATs should be counted, Quraishi said it would be best if the commission went for a significant percentage. “It is wrong to say that VVPAT counting would delay the results. You can always deploy more hands for the job to ensure that they too get counted by the time the electronic votes are.”

Stating that the Supreme Court has examined VVPATs, Quraishi said the EC only has to operate them. He also suggested that the winner-loser or other contestants should be allowed to select a few machines at random for tallying VVPAT votes.

EC assured testing of all 18 lakh VVPATs will be by in-house engineers

The former CEC also noted that it was the EC’s decision to go for VVPAT machines and that the Supreme Court had only asked the Centre to release adequate funds for them. He said that with 18 lakh machines to be operationalised ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha and assembly elections, people were also wondering how they would be tested and if the job would be outsourced. “But the EC has assured me that all the testing would be done by in-house engineers, who too would be randomised for the machines.”

Current practise of counting VVPAT votes of just one polling station is akin to `marginal tokenism’

Raising questions on the reliability of the VVPATs, the convener of the Forum for Electoral Integrity, retired IAS officer M.G. Devasahayam said the counting of votes of these machines in just one polling station amounted to just 0.4-0.5% of all votes polled and therefore their use was akin to “marginal tokenism”.

He demanded that to win the confidence of the people, a random sample of paper audit trail should be drawn from machines from booths or polling stations which record very high or low turnout, which have voters who are predominantly from backward castes or minorities and the like. He also noted that the VVPAT malfunction percentage in the by-elections was much higher than the admissible level of 5% and stood at 20.82% for Kairana, 19.27% for Bhandara-Gondia and 13.16% for Palghar.

EC expert says VVPATs more than mere ‘thermal printers’

A member of the technical expert committee of the EC, Rajat Moona, while discussing the unique technical features of VVPATs, said that “they are not only thermal printers, their print does not fade for five years unlike those of other similar devices which become faint within a few days”.

He also said VVPATs are “encapsulated devices” which work independently and have different sensors which even keep a measure of the length of its tape and ensure that it remains at 99 mm. He said the quality of print, the contrast and the fact that every slip is supposed to drop in the box are all monitored by the machine.

A former director general of the Centre for Developed and Advanced Computing, Moona said “each VVPAT machine goes through a temperature-humidity cycle”. He said behind the recent failure of these machines were caused by “multiple factors”, including “not enough maturity in handling them”.

These machines, he said, had earlier been used successfully in the Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat assembly elections. “Yet, when they encountered trouble the EC said ‘don’t shift them, change them’ since there were many on standby which could be used”.

EC wants design improvements in VVPATs, training of staff

Meanwhile, the Election Commission has asked the manufacturers and the technical expert committee to suggest additional design improvements as well as suggestions on any layout changes in polling stations to prevent any excessive exposure of VVPATs to illumination in future. “Manufacturers have also been asked to do a detailed technical analysis once the VVPATs are free from election petition (as these cannot be currently accessed in strong rooms till 45 days election petition period is over),” it said.

The commission has also decided to reiterate its standard operating procedures regarding do’s and don’ts and has also formed a committee to further examine these SOPs. It has also stated that it would make the first level checking (FLC) process stricter and adopt hardware improvements recommended by the TEC to prevent auto shutdown of VVPATs due to excessive light. Further, training of the polling officials would be strengthened and streamlined to minimise failures due to human errors.