This refers to the article, “Wisdom dawns at last on the poll panel” (March 5) by A Surya Prakash. It is laudable that the Election Commission of India has expressed its willingness to incorporate the paper trail in order to remove doubts about the integrity of the electronic voting machines. This was a long-pending demand.
To ensure a healthy and vibrant democracy, electoral reforms to make the election process transparent, fair and better are imperative. EVMs were introduced to help the country eliminate the ever-present fear of booth capturing and bogus voting and do away with the hectic and tedious method of counting. But fears have been frequently voiced about the vulnerability of these high-tech machines to tampering and manipulations, which are detrimental to democracy.
It is a good thing that voters will now get a receipt to inform them whether their vote has been registered correctly or not. The EC must now buttress this effort by making EVMs foolproof and creating greater awareness about them among the voters.