Summary
The Supreme Court dismissed the petitions seeking searchable electoral-roll PDFs and ten-percent random VVPAT verification. The Election Manual’s requirement of “text mode” concerned elector details without photographs and did not confer a right to a searchable text layer. The supplied image PDFs complied with the manual as interpreted and the Commission’s instructions. The Court did not decide the separate privacy justification and declined to entertain the VVPAT relief in light of earlier orders and the Commission’s statement.
Issues
- Whether the Election Manual required publication or supply of searchable electoral-roll PDFs.
- Whether the petitions warranted the requested ten-percent VVPAT verification direction.
Provisions considered
- Chapter XI, clause 11.2.2.2, Election Manual, 2016The requirement of text mode without photographs did not require searchable PDF files; the format supplied complied with the clause as interpreted by the Court. (¶¶ 8, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
Held
- The clause did not use the term searchable, and a description of full-text search did not change its meaning. It required elector text details without photographs, rather than an entitlement to a searchable PDF layer. (¶¶ 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
- The Commission could determine the publication format consistently with the manual. Its January 2018 instructions called for image PDFs, and the petitioner could undertake conversion to searchable form through his own efforts. The Court found it unnecessary to adjudicate the Commission’s privacy, profiling and data-mining justification. (¶¶ 24, 25)
- Having regard to earlier orders on similar requests and the Commission’s statement, the Court declined to entertain the prayer for ten-percent random VVPAT verification. It did not make a new direction fixing a verification percentage. (¶¶ 26, 27, 28)
- Both writ petitions were dismissed. (¶ 28)
Result
Writ petitions dismissed; no searchable-PDF or ten-percent VVPAT verification direction granted.