Two NGOs alleged in the Supreme Court on Monday that the Election Commission (EC) has violated election rules by destroying the VVPAT (voter verifiable paper audit trail) data of last year’s Lok Sabha polls before the conclusion of the statutory one-year period. The NGOs — Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Common Cause — referred to the response received through an RTI application from the EC and alleged before a bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde that the VVPAT data was needed to be preserved for a period of one year — a rule of the Conduct of Election Rules.
It claimed that the findings of the research revealed several discrepancies, including those in the master summary of 542 constituencies. The ADR said the discrepancies ranged from one vote to 1,01,323 votes, which was equal to 10.49 per cent of the total votes. The plea further said there were six seats where the discrepancy in the number of votes was higher than the winning margin.
— source newsclick.in | 24 Feb 2020