Now, the forum calls for a people’s march against EVMs on August 9, starting at 11 am from Mandi House in Delhi
Image Courtesy: Counter View
The victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, that gave a seemingly “massive mandate” to the party for the second time was not without several key questions being raised. Throughout the seven stage voting process, questions of not just the Election Commission’s partisan role but more specifically, EVM’s either malfunctioning or being stored in not very secure locations surfaced.
Incidents of massive Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) ‘malfunctions’ were reported in each of the seven phases of the elections. Citizens society and several leaders among the opposition parties questioned the reliability and credibility of these machines throughout the election process. Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav called the poor and non-functioning of EVMs as a case of “criminal negligence” as he reported that polling officials were “untrained” for a polling exercise that costs Rs. 50,000 crores.
During the first phase, there were reports of an EVM failure in a polling booth at Dehradun, Uttarakhand. However, the EVM started working later. In Bijnore, Uttar Pradesh (UP), there was an EVM failure in a polling booth set up in Arya Inter College which delayed the voting by 30 minutes. At another constituency in UP, Baghpat, EVM failure was reported at polling booth number 156 in village Basauli.
Further, across as many as 139 polling booths in Madhya Pradesh, 55 ballot units, 56 control units and 130 VVPATs were found to be faulty and had to be changed during the fifth phase. EVM malfunction resulted in a delay of more than an hour at polling booths which were part of Sitamarhi constituency in Bihar. In HajipurLok Sabha constituency, a technical snag was reported at two booths. Four booths in Muzaffarpur also reported EVM snags. West Bengal also witnessed faulty EVMs in booth numbers 212, 213, 163 and 288 of Hooghly constituency. There were reports of EVM malfunctioning at various polling booths in Amethi as well.
Even during the first level checks in Gujarat, on March 7, 3565 EVMs and 2594 VVPATs were found defective in Gujarat.
It is against this backdrop that serious citizens mobilisation, post election results began: EVM Virodhi Jan Andolan meetings were held against EVM ‘failures’, ‘malfunctions’ and demands were raised to go back to ballot papers. There were nationwide protests. The platform raised the demand for a Supreme Court monitored probe into the just conducted Lok Sabha polls.
In Maharashtra, the leader of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, Prakash Ambedkar, had alleged that there had been discrepancies in votes counted and votes cast in all the 48 constituencies of Maharashtra. At a press conference Mr Ambedkar said that in 26 parliamentary constituencies, votes counted on May 23, 2019 were found to be less than the declared number of votes cast.
Now, the EVM VirodhiRashtriya Jan Andolan has said that there is a “threat” to Indian democracy by the use of EVMs.
Now, calling for a people’s march against EVMs on August 9, 11 am starting at Mandi House in Delhi, the platform has highlighted some important and interesting observations.
- That there is a serious mismatch between the voter turnout/votes polled data on the EVM and the votes counted data on EVMs, both shared by the Election Commission (EC), in 373 constituencies which went to poll in the first four phases of Lok Sabha Elections 2019. “EVM is nothing but a counting machine.How can number of votes polled vary from number of votes counted? Why has ECI not explained the reasons for this mismatch?”
- That, days before the election results, there were reports that EVMs were being stored in “illegal cars” and “shops” and moved. Here, there was “no vigilance maintained by the opposition parties or even civil society”
- That, a public interest litigation in Bombay High Court also pointed out that 20 lakh EVMs had gone missing from the possession of the EC! It expressed concern about the fact that the EVMs are manufactured by the Electronics Corporation of India and Bharat Electronics, under the direct control of the Central Government. The note then asks,“Have these 20 lakh EVMS been traced till now? Has any action been taken against any official?”
- That, the ECI, when questioned about the credibility of EVMs had constantly maintained that the software used in EVMs is One Time Programmable (OTP) and thus no manipulation was possible. However, the note drew attention to the Right to Information (RTI) query that revealed that the software in EVMs wasn’t OTP and could indeed be rewritten. Similarly, it was found out that remote access software can be (illegally) installed in EVM machines, thus enabling them to be manipulated via the internet by external agents. The notes asked, “The fundamental basis of EVM has been OTP that ECI made us believe. Now that has been demolished. Will ECI apologise and replace EVMs with ballot papers?”
- That, the contract for the EVMs given to private company for handling EVMs for loading ballot units after withdrawal of candidates, seriously contradicts its previous claim that this task would be done by BEL and ECIL engineers alone.
- That, “Botswana is witnessing strong political debates overuse of EVMs imported from India. In response to several objections raised by the Opposition Botswana Congress Party (BCP) in the Botswana court, the independent election commission (IEC) in Botswana, over the past one year, has repeatedly requested the EC of India (ECI) to depose in Botswana’s courts and demonstrate the infallibility of EVMs imported from India. The ECI has till now failed to comply and there are reports that faced with this challenge it is now planning to design an EVM for Botswana that is different from the one used in India! Why is the ECI so reluctant to stand up before institutional scrutiny of its own EVMs in Botswana?”
- That in 2009, after the elections,BJP leader L. K. Advani had alleged that EVMs were not fool proof, and pointed out it’s discontinuation in the US, Germany etc. The BJP spokesperson G.V.L. Narasimha Rao wrote an entire book offering a staunch critique of EVMs, it said. The book is titled “Democracy at Risk! Can We Trust Our Electronic Voting Machines” and carried an introduction by no less than L. K. Advani! It questioned, “Why BJP is now taking an absolute U- turn about the credibility of EVMs?”