Why in news ?
In a bid to conduct free, fair and impartial election in Karnataka bypoll for Jayanagar Assembly Constituency, EC has completed its preparation and EVM with VVPAT is kept in Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) vehicles.
What is Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) ?
Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) also known as Verifiable Paper Record (VPR) is a system that is used to make electronic polls free from fraud or malfunction.
In VVPAT system, a voter is given a paper trail containing name of the candidate (for whom vote has been caste) and symbol of the party/individual candidate. This paper slip allow voters to verify that their vote was cast correctly and can be used as a means to audit for the stored electronic results.
Depending on election laws the paper audit trail may constitute a legal ballot and therefore provide a means by which a manual vote count can be conducted if a recount is necessary.
Systematic Voter's Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP)
Systematic Voter?s Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) is a program of Election Commission to ensure participative role of a voter in Indian Democracy by making the voter Informed, Educated and Motivated to cast his/her vote in meaningful manner.
The program was started from Bihar, and simply targets to remove gaps in information, motivation and facilitation of the voters in order to increase turnout in elections.
Under the program various survays are conducted to understand voter's behaviour, these findings are than used to target under-performing areas where special initiatives are needed, such as making the enrolment process easier and convenient and people friendly.
Existing infrastructure and manpower of state and central government is also leveraged by ECI for electoral education and outreach.
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