What’s in Today’s Article?

• Background (Supreme Court’s Observation)
• About SLU (Meaning, Working, Benefits, etc.)

Background:

• The Supreme Court has rejected the plea for 100% verification of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips against the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) count.
• The Court has directed the Election Commission to seal and secure the Symbol Loading Unit (SLU) for 45 days after the declaration of election results.
• Currently, only the three components of the EVM – the ballot unit, control unit and VVPAT – are stored for 45 days after the results.

What is a Symbol Loading Unit (SLU) and How Does it Work?

• Symbol Loading Units (SLUs) were introduced around the same time as VVPATs — a little over a decade ago.
• VVPATs help voters verify their votes — they see a slip with a printed image of the party symbol they voted for.
• But for the VVPAT to print a symbol correctly, information pertaining to the list of candidates and their symbols must be loaded on to the VVPAT machine in the correct order.
• This is where the Symbol Loading Unit, or SLU, comes in. In fact, the introduction of VVPATs necessitated the use of SLUs.
• The SLU is used to load the symbols of the candidates onto the VVPAT.
• It is a matchbox-sized device that is first connected to a laptop or personal computer, from where a symbol loading application is used to load a bitmap file containing the candidates’ names, serial numbers, and symbols.
• The SLU is then connected to the VVPAT to transfer that file on to the paper audit machine.
• This is done under the supervision of a district election officer.

At Which Point in the Election Process are SLUs Used?

• The SLUs come into the picture only a few days before polling in a particular seat, when the EVMs are being commissioned and the list/ order of contesting candidates is decided.
• Candidate-setting can happen at any time from five to two days before voting at a seat.
• Once the SLU is used to load symbols onto the VVPAT, the EVM is ready for use.
• After this, the SLU is of no relevance to the actual voting process.

What Happens to an SLU After Symbols are Loaded?

• Typically, a small number of SLUs are enough to load symbols onto all VVPATs for a seat.
• According to EC officials, it takes an SLU two to three minutes to load each VVPAT.
• Once the symbol-loading is complete, the SLUs are handed over to the concerned district election officer for safekeeping.
• They remain in the officer’s custody until the day after voting.
• Afterward, the SLUs are released to the engineers of the two EVM manufacturers, Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) or Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL), so they can be used to load symbols onto VVPATs for other seats in subsequent phases.
• Thus, in a multi-phase election like the ongoing one for the 18th Lok Sabha, an SLU is typically reused after one phase of polling to load symbols onto VVPATs meant for other seats in subsequent phases.