Centre Clears 3,000 Crores For VVPATs, Vote Machines With Paper Receipts

The next general election in 2019 will be conducted entirely with new electronic voting machines that print a paper receipt for each vote cast.   Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced today that the centre is releasing about 3,000 crores to ensure the new machines are ready by September 2018, as needed by the Election Commission.

The decision comes as opposition parties have attacked the machines currently in use as being vulnerable to rigging.

In 2013, the Supreme Court said that the Election Commission must introduce the new machines called VVPATs (machines with



Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail) in phases. The court said that the 2019 national election must be run entirely with these upgraded machines, but the Election Commission has been warning that it is running out of time to place orders for VVPATs.

Last week, the Supreme Court asked the Election Commission and the centre to explain the delay in switching to VVPATs which function like this: when a button is pushed to choose a candidate on a voting machine, a slip of paper shows the party symbol of the candidate selected. The receipt is visible to the voter for a few seconds before it drops into a sealed box.