The Supreme Court  while hearing petitions seeking 100 percent verification of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) against Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) records asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to explain the working of the EVM-VVPAT today.

The top court was hearing petitions seeking cross-verification of votes polled on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) by matching them with VVPAT paper slips. This comes days ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the first phase of which begins on Friday.

The VVPAT - Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail - is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballotless voting system. A VVPAT is intended as an independent verification system for voting machines designed to allow voters to verify that their vote was cast correctly, to detect possible election fraud or malfunction, and to provide a means to audit the stored electronic results.

The machine contains the name of the candidate (for whom vote has been cast) and symbol of the party/individual candidate.

The VVPATs are a second line of verification and are particularly useful at the time when allegations around Electronic Voting Machines' tampering arise. The machines can be accessed by the polling officials and not by the voters.