Eminent citizens urge EC to ensure transparency in party funding

Eminent citizens, including former election commissioner Wajahat Habibullah and activist Anjali Bhardwaj, have urged the poll panel to ensure the integrity of voting, counting and transparency in political party funding.

Addressing a press conference organised by the Association for Democratic Reforms, Right to Information activist Anjali Bhardwaj said the VVPAT system should be re-calibrated to be fully voter-verifiable.

"A voter should be able to get the VVPAT slip in her hand and cast it in a chip-free ballot box for the vote to be valid. These VVPAT slips should be fully counted first for all constituencies before the results are declared. For this purpose, VVPAT (voter verifiable paper audit trail) slips should be larger in size and must be printed in such a manner that they can be preserved for a minimum of five years," she said.

She also said that to prevent arbitrary deletions, the Election Commission must ensure that prior notice is issued to every voter whose name is proposed to be deleted.

"This has also been directed by the Supreme Court in its recent judgment dated August 4...," Bhardwaj added.

Former election commissioner Habibullah said the electoral system has to evolve which is the need of the hour.

"We are not saying EVMs (electronic voting machines) should be withdrawn and go back to ballot papers. There are questions that remain unanswered and we are not satisfied," he said.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who was also at the event, said EVM/VVPAT voting does not comply with the essential democracy principles that each voter should be able to verify that her vote is "cast-as-intended, recorded-as-cast and counted- as-recorded".

He said though the poll panel has arranged for ail EVMs to be accompanied with VVPAT-device, the 'voter-verifiable paper trail' has been reduced to the level of a bioscope which shows up a tiny paper slip for seven seconds which then vanishes and is not counted.

They also presented a memorandum undersigned by over 5,000 citizens to this effect and put forward their demands of ensuring integrity of voting and counting, integrity of electoral rolls and advocacy for transparency in politics.