This Statement has been issued by Madhav Deshpande with 40 plus years of experience in the field of Computer Science and its Applications and Architecture of Unique Software apart from being a consultant to the Obama administration, Prof Harish Karnick, Retd. Prof. Dept. of Comp. Sc. and Engg., IIT, Kanpur, Kaushik Majumdar, Professor Indian Statistical Institute, Sarbendu Guha, Principal Product Engineer, Digital Infrastructure For India.

Last week, April 11, US Congresswoman, Tulsi Gabbard, also Director, US National Intelligence clearly and publicly stated that, she had told a Cabinet Meeting in her country that “her office has solid evidence of massive security flaws in the EVMs enabling hackers to manipulate and flip votes,” and was therefore demanding a return to paper ballots. Fast on the heels of this much publicised statement, the Election Commission of India (ECI) that has –of late been questioned on the vulnerability of aspects of the Electronic Voting System (EVS)—made what is being viewed a far-reaching statement that Indian EVMs not connected to Internet, Wi-Fi, says Election Commission amid Tulsi Gabbard’s comments.

The statement now issued by experts, states that “at the outset we would like to state that it is shocking that the ECI responds so promptly to an official of a foreign government, even as it is obdurate and non-responsive to legitimate queries by citizens, experts and the political opposition.” Elaborating further, this team of experts enumerates, in the statement on why it “strongly disagrees” with the ECI for the following reasons:

“Manipulation of an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) is the set of actions to make the EVM perform in the way it is not supposed to behave. Such manipulation can be effected by providing additional data to the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) using the Symbol Loading Unit (SLU). The SLU acquires its data when connected to the ECI website after the candidate list is finalized, which only a few days before the voting day.

“While it is very difficult to alter the program instruction set in the one-time write locked EEPROM, it is entirely possible to:

1. Push a Trojan software through the USB drive when it is connected to the VVPAT for purpose of uploading the candidate list. Such Trojan software will modify the firmware as if the firmware is being “updated”. The “updated” firmware will then perform manipulated malfunction to deliver manipulated results. It is important to note that ISP (In-System Programming) is an established way of updating the firmware of a microcontroller and as such is a ubiquitously accessible technique
2. Supply additional data to the already burnt-in program. The program existing in the VVPAT must be already written to recognise the additional data and decision making branches already must exist in the program code to deliver manipulated functionality

The experts, in this statement, that the earlier version of EVMs used before 2014 Lok Sabha elections were intended to be stand-alone and therefore not open to manipulation. This earlier EVS system did not have the VVPAT unit nor the Symbol Loading Unit (SLU) and moreover, did not need data (mapping candidate/party symbol to buttons of the Ballot Unit-BU) nor any additional instruction set to be loaded into EVM-VVPAT through a physical communication port. However this is not the case since and therefore, “the ECI’s bald statement, without answering concerns by Indian Computer Science experts does not inspire confidence”.

The other issue raised by these experts is that it should be a matter of concern for citizens that “the ECI has never demonstrated publicly and opened any operational CU, BU, and VVPAT in public presence. The ECI has never allowed any open door controlled testing of any working EVM in the presence of independent experts or voters. Moreover, these EVMs are not certified by any third party, nor any neutral experts committee that can state that ‘the EVM does not emit or receive any Radio Frequency (RF) signal.’’

Demands made by this team of experts:

Indian citizens should be allowed to conduct non-invasive and non-destructive tests on the powered-on, working EVMs at three locations in every state to satisfy themselves that EVM does not respond to or create any RF communication channel. These EVMs must not be from the spare EVMs stored, but must be from those that were actually used in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

In addition, they demand that the ECI publishes the steps and processes followed to establish and prove data integrity across the entire Electronic Voting System or Electronic Election System: that is the ECI publishes every step taken and the process at every step to establish and prove data integrity across the BU, CU (including the procedure to establish that both copies of electronic vote stored in the CU are identical), VVPAT (the data exchange between the VVPAT and the CU) and finally the values received by the counting unit (as applicable).

Under the constitutional obligation under Article 324-326 of the Constitution, the ECI must publish the detailed protocol it follows on the day of voting and the day of counting to establish that none of the above data has been changed. “The ECI’s blanket statements that Indian EVMs are not connected to internet wirelessly /wired fashion (read external radio wave or microwave communication signals) without giving out details of the circuits is tantamount to official propaganda bereft of scientific or rational enquiry,” reads the statement.

Finally, the Symbol-Loading Unit (SLU) of the VVPAT unit is connected to the ECI’s website for a brief while – after the list of candidates and their symbols are finalised and before the date of polling. All details about the final list of candidates including their symbols are downloaded from the ECI’s website on to the VVPAT unit. There is an electronic security loophole here because it is possible to introduce a vote-stealing Trojan into the ECI’s website, with or without the ECI’s knowledge, and this Trojan can get downloaded into the VVPAT unit.

The vote-stealing Trojan can be so programmed as to get activated after a certain number of votes (say, 200 votes) have been cast, and to convert, say, every 5th vote cast thereafter to a vote for a certain political party, when the signal is transmitted from the VVPAT unit to the Control unit. The vote-stealing Trojan can also be programmed to self-destruct, say, 6 hours after the last vote has been cast, leaving no trace of its nefarious deed. The Trojan can be programmed to act only on a certain date and that too after a certain time of the day.

Further, the Trojan or the original program itself can be written to respond to additional data uploaded via SLU. Such program will (or can) display different behaviour in every constituency, based on the data uploaded from the SLU. Therefore, experts have demanded that from each constituency, at least 3 randomly selected SLUs, (selected by public), should be given to open scrutiny by a committee of experts. This scrutiny should be carried out in full public view.

On April 11, 2025 a group of over 80 Citizens including Experts had submitted a Detailed Memorandum to the Election Commission of India. This can be read here.

Related:

Memo to ECI: Make Voter’s Form 17Cs list accessible on Commission website, clean up existing, technologically messy EVS structure, say citizens

Vote for Democracy (VFD) releases report on the conduct of General Election 2024

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The post Computer science experts question ECI’s rebuttal of Tulsi Gabbard on Indian EVMs appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Needless to say that the faith of a citizen in Governance germinates out of the process of fair, impartial, efficient and transparent elections by free exercise of the right to vote, given by ‘we, the citizens of India’ through adult suffrage in Article 326 of the Constitution of India, there is no provision for seeking votes on the basis of caste, creed, religion, enticement or threat by hate speech.

To this end, Article 334 has provided for the establishment of the Election Commission of India and the legislature has framed ‘The Representation of The People Act 1951’ and the Election Rules 1961, thereunder. The Act and the rules, have made various provisions elaborately for the conduct of free and fair election. Each functionary and authority down the lane even up to the booth level presiding/polling officers, are duty bound to conduct fair election. Under Section 27 of the Act, duty is cast on the Presiding officer to ensure a free and fair exercise. Further the duties and rights of election agents, polling agents and the counting agents stand incorporated under section 40 to 50 of the Act for an impartial and transparent procedure. Further under ‘The Conduct of Election Rules 1961’ there are more safeguards for transparency and fairness so as to put an end to arbitrariness and fudging the data of votes polled.

Under Rule 49 L the name of each elector is to be entered in serial order in Register 17A and his/her signatures are obtained before allowing him /her to vote. In fact it is a live register and real time monitoring. Voter turnout can be seen at any moment and the same has to be uploaded every 2 hours on the ENCORE App.

At the close of the polls Rule 49 S provides that number of votes polled is to be declared by the PO after pressing close button and the said number is recorded in Form 17-C.  A signed copy of this form 17-C, is given to each Polling Agent present at the close of the poll. As such, there should be no delay in declaration of votes having been polled at the polling booth and the same is to be uploaded on ENCORE App. Under rule 93(2) form 17-C can be inspected and a copy can be obtained by a citizen after making payment of fee as prescribed.

However, during the recently concluded elections to the 18^th Lok Sabha, the transparency and fairness has come under cloud on more than one occasion and on various issues. The Election Commission of India (ECI) kept trying to keep everything concealed, and kept trying to by-pass all the established norms. This attitude of the ECI created suspicion and strong doubts about the fairness of the whole exercise.

The first and foremost blow to the transparency and accountability was struck, when the ECI failed to declare figures of the votes polled at the end of the polls. Though ECI posted initial provisional percentage of voter turnout for the 1^st Phase (April 19) at around 7.00 pm on the day at 60% but actual votes polled or the final figure of voter turnout was not divulged for 11 days! There is no rational excuse for this delay. Criticism and questions led to a callous and stony silence on behalf of the ECI. This silence by an institution that is constitutionally mandate to have unfailing allegiance to each and every citizen of India, the Voter, and not the Government in power, led to more confusion and suspicion. Thereafter for the 2^nd phase too (April 26), only a provisional figure of 60.96% was declared, the final figures were not declared. After a lot of hue and cry in media the ECI on 30.04.2024 declared final provisional figures to be 66.14% for 1st phase and 66.71% for 2^nd phase. As such an unexplained huge hike of voter turn by 6.14% and 5.75% was therefore shown for both the 1st and 2^nd phase. Before public vigilance grew stronger and ECI’s motives were openly suspect, already votes to 192 and 89 seats had been case in the 1^st and 2^nd phases respectively.

ECI hikes failed to divulge figures of voter Turn Out in time

Thereafter the ECI made it a routine to hike the voter turnout figure after 4-5 days, the hike was 4.23%, 6.32%, 4.73%, 4.31% and 4.33% in the 3^rd, 4^th,5^th,6^th and the 7^th phases respectively. These elections took place on May 7, May 13m May 20, May 25 and June 1 respectively. These Phases individually accounted for 94, 96, 49, 57 and 57 seats respectively.

Despite the fact that the ECI remains unaccountably obdurate and unconvincing in addressing serious questions of the anomalies, they raise questions that must be answered, This unexplained hike when analysed phase wise and state wise depicts startling figures of hike in each state and same being connected to the tally of the BJP and NDA as shown in table below.

The curious case of Punjab

Further that BJP vote share in Punjab rose to 18.56% with hike of 6.94% in voter turnout.  In Chandigarh with increase of 5.18% the winning margin reduced to 2504, in Tamil Nadu turn out hiked by 9.53% and BJP Vote share rose to get more than doubled to 11.24%.

Table above depicts that in UP first two phases voter turnout hiked by 3.02% NDA got 9 seats out of 16, strike rate of 56.25% but when in next 5 phases hike was only 0.25% NDA tally was 27/64 strike rate of 42.2% only.

ECI: Misplaced, misleading claims

The claim of ECI that the voter turnout cannot be uploaded on same or 2^nd day because the distances are too long, connectivity is too poor, voting closes in late hours, polling parties are dead tired.

However this lie is badly exposed because in Chandigarh where the connectivity is first rate, and the constituency has only 614 polling booths, the total voter turnout is only 4,48,547 voters, distance within the Constituency is within a radius of 15 kms, yet the turnout has been increased by 5.18%, that too after the tally is made public after four days! The ECI has no reply to this. The geographical area, the total number of voters, polling booths and distances are minimum (small) as compared to any district of UP with almost more than a million votes polled in each constituency! Yet, in Chandigarh, the final figures of polling were given on June 6, an inexplicable 5 days after polling, showing a hike of 5.18% whereas in UP (in the last 5 phases), there was negligible change in EVM figures of of 0.25% only.

With a 12.54% vote hike in Odisha, NDA got 20 out of 21 seats, in Andhra Pradesh with 12.54% hike cornered 21 out of 25 seats, in Assam with a 9.19% hike, the seats of NDA stood at 11 of 14 and in Chhattisgarh, the hike of 4.66 % in votes meant that the NDA won 10 seats out of 11.

Tampering of votes polled in EVMs

Did the manipulation stop there?

After polling in 542 seats in 7 phases and the mess created by this unexplained hike of vote percentage in each phase to the extent of 4.31% to 6.32% was not the only way this 18^th Lok Sabha election was manipulated. The matter did not stop there.

The sanctity of EVM also stands breached in 539 seats. Only in 3 seats one in Lakshadweep, one in Damma & Diu and one in Amreli in Gujrat the votes recovered in EVM were exactly the same as the votes polled.

However, in the rest of the 539 seats the votes polled in EVM did not tally with the votes recovered in EVM at the time of counting. Discrepancy of votes has been found in all the 7 phases, the variation ranging from 1 vote to a staggering 16, 791 votes!

The Table below depicts in 274 seats EVM votes variation range is 1-500, in another 97 seats it is between 501 -1000, while in a mindboggling number of seats that 151 seats variation range is 1001-5000. However, 17 seats showed the variation of more than 5000 votes, the highest being 16791 votes in Tiruvallur of Tamil Nadu.

Excess votes recovered from EVM of 174 Constituencies

In a significant, 174 seats the votes recovered from EVM s at the end of counting hour was more than the votes actually polled in the EVMs during polling time before close of polls.

The range of excess votes is the minimum and the maximum between 1 and 3811 votes and can be seen per constituency in each phase of polling in the table below.

While in as many as 365 seats votes recovered from EVMs during counting were less than the votes polled in the EVMs during polling, the range being between 1 and 16791, the minimum and the maximum limit.

Out of these a few constituencies depicting high deficit are listed in the table below:

Here are some seats where the BJP has won by a very narrow margin and the discrepancy of votes polled in EVM and Votes recovered from EVM is also significant in relation to these margins.

As such one can imagine very easily that these 10 seats with so narrow a margin need an explanation from the ECI as to how could sanctity of votes polled in EVMs be jeopardised? When this margin has affected the result decisively?

ECI claimed in its press release on 25.05.2024 as under:

“Any alteration in number of votes polled is not possible. The whole exercise of release of turn out data from the commencement of date of polls on19th April 2024 has been accurate, consistent and in accordance with the election laws and without any discrepancy whatsoever.”

Will the ECI be able to make public as to whether its data was wrong, arguably even manipulated and a fake claim had been propagated about its invincibility? Or was the exercise only any eye wash to intentionally mislead the public so that criticism is diluted and no finger is pointed out at such serious flaws? Let the Hon’ble Supreme Court also now come out boldly and openly on this manifest slap in the face of democracy by its own highest institutions.

The ECI is –to date –not giving any detailed or cogent explanation about these huge discrepancies in EVM Votes in 539 constituencies! Rather, it is trying to mislead –by an exercise in guess work—where, in fact there has been an effort to promote a conscious negligence, active connivance. Worse, the deliberate attempt has been to make the process opaque to enable one-sided favours by the ECI. This constitutional body, the ECI could have come out with a cogent explanation for the mismatch of EVM votes for each constituency individually and severely.

Trust is low, in both the ECI as well as in EVMs. Faith and a Free and Fair Election has been dealt a blow.

(The author is former Dean, Punjab University Faculty of Medical Sciences)

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

The post SABRANGINDIA EXCLUSIVE: Election 2024, ECI: Technical glitch, gross negligence or deliberate manipulation? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Citizen’s Commission on Elections was headed by Justice Lokur as Chairperson with Wajahat Habibullah, former Chief Information Commissioner as Vice-Chairperson and members: Justice (retd) Hariparanthaman, former Madras High Court Judge, Prof. Arun Kumar, Malcolm S. Adiseshiah Chair Professor, Institute of Social Sciences , Subhashis Banerjee, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Delhi Pamela Philipose, Senior Journalist Dr John Dayal, Writer and Activist. The Covenor and Coordinator were Sundar Burra, former Secretary, Government of Maharashtra and M. G. Devasahayam, IAS (retd) respectively.

In its extensive report that explores the various aspects of the EVM and VPAT system as it exists, the Commission makes the following broad recommendations:

Software and hardware independence

The electronic voting system should be re-designed to be software and hardware independent in order to be verifiable or auditable. EVMs cannot be assumed to be tamper-proof. As defined by Rivest [9], a voting system is software (hardware) independent if an undetected change in software (hardware) cannot lead to an undetectable change in the election outcome. Any solution that relies crucially on the correctness of the EVM is not software and hardware independent.

End-to-end (E2E) verifiability

One way to achieve software and hardware independence is to use E2E verifiable systems with provable guarantees of correctness. The overall correctness of voting is established by the correctness of three steps: cast-as-intended indicating that the voting machine has registered the vote correctly, recorded-as-cast indicating the cast vote is correctly included in the final tally, and counted-as recorded indicating that final tally is correctly computed. There must also be guarantees against spurious vote injection. These guarantees should be publicly verifiable.

ECI should explore the possibility of using an E2E verifiable system [2].

Re-design of the VVPAT system

The VVPAT system should be re-designed to be fully voter-verified [18, 11, 12]. The voter should be able to approve the VVPAT printout before the vote is finally cast, and be able to cancel if there is an error.

Moreover, in case a voter disputes that the vote has been incorrectly recorded, there must be a clear method of determination either in favour of the voter or in f a v o u r o f the authorities [12]. This may not be possible in a pure DRE based system like the ECI’s EVM, because the machine may not make the same error when tested and because it is not possible to determine, without doubt, whether it did originally make the error. In this case, the voter cannot be penalized.

End-of-poll audits

To be compliant with democratic principles there is a definite need to move away from certification of voting equipment and processes and demonstrate that the out- come of an election is correct irrespective of machines and custody chains of EVMs. Two ways to do this are by adopting rigorous and well established strategies for compliance and risk limiting audits [6, 17, 2] or by using a provably end-to-end verifiable cryptographic protocol, or both [2, 18, 12]. In any case, the ECI needs to change the currently prescribed policy for VVPAT based audit with more rigorous risk-limiting audit based sampling strategies [6] before the results are announced.

Also there must be a clear pre-announced protocol for deciding the outcome – including possible re-polling – if there is a mismatch between the VVPAT and the electronic tallies [3].

Legislation

There has to be legislation to deal with the cases when the audit, and subsequent recount, reveal a problem. Legislation will also be required to regulate when, and if, a candidate can request a hand count. Best practices suggest that such legislation be based on established statistical principles, as opposed to the judgment of individual election officials, to the extent possible [18].

Independent review

The voting system design should be subjected to independent (of the government and ECI) review and the integrity of the election process should be subjected to independent audit.

The findings should be made public.

Transparent processes

Finally, the election processes need to be completely transparent and should not have too many requirements of trust on authorities and experts, including on ECI [3, 10, 18, 12, 11]. All design details should be publicly available. Also, there should be more public consultations, and public and civil society concerns should be transparently and fairly handled.

Finally, if we opt for electronic elections and bring computer science and statistics into public life, then we cannot leave their disciplinary rigour behind.

Specific Recommendations:

Specifically the report released on January 26, 2024 recommends:

1. The decision making processes within the ECI need to be much more logical, rigorous and principled compared to what it was for the 2019 parliamentary
2. EVMs cannot be assumed to be tamper-proof. The electronic voting system should be redesigned to be software and hardware independent in order to be verifiable or This does not imply that software or hardware cannot be used, but that the correctness of the election outcome cannot be entirely dependent on their working correctly.
3. The VVPAT system should be re-designed to be fully voter-verified. The voter should be able to approve the VVPAT printout before the vote is finally cast, and be able to cancel if there is an
4. The integrity of the VVPAT slips and the EVM machines during the entire time after polling and before counting and auditing must be ensured in a manner that is verifiable by all (and especially the candidates). There should be no trust requirement on the custody
5. There must be stringent audit of the electronic vote count before the results are The audit should not be based on ad hoc methods but by counting a statistically significant sample of the VVPAT slips according to rigorous and well established statistical audit techniques. The audit may in some cases – depending on the margin of victory – require a full manual counting of VVPAT slips.
6. There should be legislation to decide what is to be done if the audits reveal a Such legislation should ideally be based on well-established statistical procedures and not on subjective decision of a few officials.
7. There is a definite need to move away from certification of voting equipment and processes and demonstrate that the outcome of an election is correct irrespective of machines and trust on custody chains of EVMs. Two ways to do this are by adopt ing rigorous and well established strategies for risk-limiting audits or by using a provably end-to-end verifiable cryptographic protocol, or The ECI should explore the possibilities.
8. Finally, the voting system design should be subjected to independent (of the government and ECI) review and the integrity of the election process should be subjected to independent The findings should be made public. In particular, all design details should be transparent and publicly available.

Report may be read here:

References 

1. Poonam Deposition by Poonam Agarwal. https://drive.google.com/drive/ folders/ 1dGsIwgA4HPgootDLdFx8M2Clp4RjDJ3?usp=sharing.
2. Matthew Bernhard, Josh Benaloh, Alex Halderman, Ronald L. Rivest, Peter Y.
3. Ryan, Philip B. Stark, Vanessa Teague, Poorvi L. Vora, and Dan S. Wallach. Public evidence from secret ballots. In Electronic Voting – Second International Joint Conference,

E-Vote-ID 2017, Bregenz, Austria, October 24-27, 2017, Proceedings, pages 84–109, 2017.

3. G. Devasahayam. Deposition by M G Devasahayam.
   https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ 1Ziff77jliZls-gr-dw2Gx0HRxe7xMVOY?usp=sharing.

4. Andy Hacker Lexicon: What Is a Side Channel Attack?
   https://www.wired.com/story/ what-is-side-channel-attack/, 2020. [Online June 21, 2020].

5. Alex Security Problems in India’s Electronic Voting System. https://crcs. seas.harvard.edu/event/alex-halderman-security-problems-india%E2%80%99s-electron- icvoting-system, 2011.
6. Mark Lindeman, Philip B. Stark, and Vincent S. Yates. BRAVO: Ballot-polling risk- limiting audits to verify outcomes. In 2012 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop/Work- shop on Trustworthy Elections (EVT/WOTE 12), Bellevue, WA, August USENIX As- sociation.
7. Venkatesh Deposition by Venkatesh Nayak.
   https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ 1633FLITVd0d4F-Ra6viROFdkCURfsO4?usp=sharing.

8. Oleksii Oleksenko, Bohdan Trach, Robert Krahn, Mark Silberstein, and Christof Varys: Protecting SGX enclaves from practical side-channel attacks. In 2018 USENIX Annual Technical Conference (USENIX ATC 18), pages 227–240, Boston, MA, July 2018. USENIX Association.
9. Ronald Rivest. On the notion of software independence in voting systems. Phil- osophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 366(1881):3759–3767, 2008.
10. Prasanna Deposition by Prasanna S.
    https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ 14BvRxi0PItAdA3EYXm2qrZSC9rz7pdm?usp=sharing.

11. Anupam Deposition by Anupam Saraph.
    https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10In9T1iL9oTUov1k7ncpWE-1ixMfTF8g?usp=sharing.

12. Subodh Deposition by Subodh Sharma. https://drive.google.com/drive/fold

ers/1u5qjNmqNJM77SK6qlc5utfHmi5jTTBo?usp=sharing.

13. Ashok Vardhan Shetty. Winning Voter Confidence: Fixing India’s Faulty VVPAT-based Audit of EVMs. https://www.thehinducentre.com/publications/policy-watch/ article25607027.ece.
14. Sandeep Deposition by Sandeep Shukla.
    https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YPQHYw5ozmNWkekKlFNyTDfe1V0sseq?usp=sharing.

15. Sandeep Shukla. Editorial: To use or not to? Embedded systems for voting. ACM Trans. Embed. Comput. Syst., 17(3):58:1–58:2, May 2018.

16. Bappa Deposition by Bappa Sinha.
    https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZADKm2Ciryu4Gmo m7qO-MMyf8ECSKib?usp=sharing.

17. Philip Stark and David A. Wagner. Evidence-based elections. IEEE Secur. Priv., 10(5):33–41, 2012.
18. Poorvi L. Vora, Alok Choudhary, J. Alex Halderman, Douglas W. Jones, Nasir Memon, Bhagirath Narahari, R. Ramanujam, Ronald L. Rivest, Philip B. Stark, K. V. Subrahmanyam, and Vanessa Teague. Deposition by Poorvi Vora et al. https://drive. com/drive/folders/ 1x00pJHVhR1K7uLCdFuPIsiTDKp4cuQ2?usp=sharing.

Related:

Massive protest in Delhi by Bharat Mukti Morcha with one demand- REMOVE EVMs, SAVE DEMOCRACY

EVMs for urban bodies, paper ballot for panchayat elections: MP Election Commission

EVM security: Whose responsibility is it anyway?

The post Is the Indian EVM & VVPAT System free, fair, fit for elections or can it be manipulated? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
London: A cyber expert, identified as Syed Shuja who is seeking political asylum in the US, claimed on Monday that the 2014 elections were “rigged” through the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), which, he claims, can be hacked.
 
The Election Commission of India has denied the charge.
 
Addressing a press conference in London via Skype, Syed Shuja said he fled India in 2014 because he felt threatened in the country after his team members were killed.
 
The cyber expert also claimed that BJP leader Gopinath Munde was “killed because he was aware of EVM hacking in the 2014 elections.”
 
He, however, provided no proof to back up his allegations.
 
Syed Shuja also claimed that NIA officer Tanzil Ahmed, who was investigating Munde’s death, was planning to file an FIR noting that the BJP leader had been murdered, but was himself killed.
 
He claimed to be a part of the team at Electronic Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL), which designed and developed the EVMs.
 
He claimed he could demonstrate how the voting machines can be hacked. He claimed that major political parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Aam Aadmi Party, were involved in the rigging of voting machines.
 
“SP and BSP contacted my ‘team members’ to help them, while AAP asked to show it how EVMs could be rigged,” Shuja had said.
 
Aam Aadmi Party spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj said the party had contacted “many persons” to demonstrate that electronic voting machines could be hacked but denied that Shuja was one of them. “No, we did not contact him,” Bhardwaj said.
 
A presentation was organised by the European chapter of the Indian Journalists’ Association in London where Shuja was brought in on a video call with a room full of reporters, including numerous Indian news organisations such as India Today, Anandabazar Patrika, Times Now and The Quint. Shuja was supposed to demonstrate live how EVMs can be hacked but was brought in on video call since he claims he was attacked four days ago.
 
According to The Quint, Shuja alleged that he and his team were instructed by ECIL to find out whether EVMs could be hacked and to find out how to do this. His second claim was that his team was shot and killed in a Hyderabad suburb in April 2014 during the elections, where they went to meet a BJP leader after realising that low-frequency signals were being emitted from EVMs. Shuja and his team had tried to set up a meeting with BJP leaders with the intent of blackmailing the ruling party with what they knew, and when they went to visit the leader’s house, they were shot and killed. Shuja too was allegedly shot but survived.
 
Shuja further alleged that during the Delhi state elections in 2015, people he was currently working with to “save Indian democracy” who were located in India managed to “intercept the transmission” which resulted in the AAP winning 67 out of 70 seats. “Otherwise the BJP would have swept,” he claimed. Referring to the recently conducted state elections in which the BJP lost the Hindi heartland, Shuja also claimed that if his people had not intercepted the BJP attempts to hack the transmission in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the party would have won those states too.
 
Shuja didn’t stop here. He claimed he had narrated the entire story of EVM rigging to a “famous Indian journalist who shouts on TV every night” but nothing came out of it even though the journalist had promised to tell his story. He claimed that Gauri Lankesh had agreed to run the story for him but she too was killed. “She was waiting to run the story, but she was murdered.”
 
Shuja also claimed that Reliance Jio was the one who had helped the BJP get the low-frequency signals to hack EVMs. When a reporter asked Shuja that since Reliance Jio was not around in 2014, who exactly was it who had helped the BJP with technology for these frequency hacks, Shuja went on to suggest the reporter ask that question to Kapil Sibal since “he was the one who actually gave approval…”
 
“Reliance Communications have the network to transmit the data, BJP is the beneficiary. There are nine places in India where there are facilities. The employees don’t know that they are tampering with EVMs. They think they are doing data entry,” alleged Shuja, according to The Quint’s live blog report.
 
The Election Commission reacted to the proceedings, calling it a “motivated slugfest” and is currently mulling legal action.
 
“It has come to our notice that an event claiming to demonstrate EVMs used by ECI can be tampered with, has been organised in London. ECI has been wary of becoming a party to this motivated slugfest and stands by empirical facts about the foolproof nature of ECI EVMs,” the Election Commission said.
 
The commission further said EVMs used in Indian elections were manufactured by Bharat Electronics and Electronics Corporation of India under “very strict supervisory and security conditions”.
 

The post Cyber expert shows EVMs can be hacked and were rigged in 2014 polls appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
For all the 150 plus seats bluster byBJP party president, Amit Shah, the EVMs which are just faulty enough to vote BJP out of the 30 odd parties on any machine, the questionably opartisan attitude of the Election Commission, the 50 plus Modi rallies, the 18 central ministers parked all over the state, the deliberate polarisation by the prime minister in his speeches (that did not attract any reprimand from the CEC), the fake Pakistani conspiracy campaign and the naughty Ahmed Patel for CM posters, the BJP has just won by 8 odd seats.  This tells its own story
 
This indicates five things:
1) It is still easy to sell Vikas on the back of religious polarisation
2) The cities of this country are full of ‘educated illiterates’ who neither understand economics nor low social indicators after 22 years of governance.
3) Not a single exit poll has come close to the actual figure clearly suggesting how deeply the media has been compromised and paid off
4) Rahul Gandhi is a serious challenge than anybody ever gave him credit for and
5) The BJP is no longer going to get 2019 on a platter
 
So forget Vikas and get ready for some scary times where hate-bartering and polarisation will be used to reap in votes. We may see more incidents like the ghastly killings by the mobs of the more gau-rakshaks backed by the brigands of the VHP and the Bajrang Dals. Because Gujarat just proved that is how the right wing pulls back a losing election.
 
2019 is going to be dirty business. Good luck Good luck.
 
And what about the EVMs?
 
These three images tell their own story. More votes polled than registered. We yet do not know what the EC is doing about this.
 
Evm surat
Evm Vedroad
EVM 3

And do what this Video

 
Concerned citizens have started this FB page
https://www.facebook.com/back2ballot/
 
More Interesting facts and figures
The Congress, India’s major opposition party, written off as a has been by an increasingly rapacious media polled as many as 85 lakh votes in 2014, three years ago when the Modi wave swept India into an abyss. 
 
Three and a half years later, in 2017, Congress got nearly 1 crore 25 lakh votes. This is a whopping 47% increase! 
 
The BJP’s vote fell from 1 crore 52 lakh (2014) to 1 crore 47 lakh (2017).
 
The number of total votes polled increased by 39 lakh, yet BJP’s share fell by 5 lakh votes.
 
However, of course, BJP still won 49.1% votes.
 
The Gujarat election results declared today revealed a tight contest in assembly seats such as Himatnagar, Porbandar, Vijapur, Deodar, Dangs, Mansa and Godhra. The BJP and Congress were locked in a nail-biting contest in at least 16 seats in Gujarat, where the victory margin was less than 2,000 votes and of just about 200 votes in a few.

Spoilers: In seats like Dholka and Fatepura, smaller parties like NCP and BSP ate into the crucial votes which some described as snatching of near-certain victories from the Congress. The independents also scored big in some seats.

The assembly seats to have seen a photo-finish included Himatnagar, Porbandar, Vijapur, Deodar, Dangs, Mansa and Godhra. At many places, independent candidates, primarily rebels, cut votes of either of the two main parties.

In tribal-dominated Dangs, Congress managed a slender margin of 768 over the nearest rival BJP while in Kaprada, another ST seat, the Congress snatched victory by a mere 170 votes.

The NOTA option polled 1.8 per cent of the total votes and a huge 5 lakh of the Gujarati voter said no to both the BJP, Congress and all contestants.
 
There were at least eight seats, where Congress candidates trailed their nearest rivals by less than 2,000 votes, including in Godhra where BJP’s CK Raulji won by just 258 votes. The NOTA or none-of-the-above votes counted 3,050 in Godhra and one independent candidate got over 18,000 votes to finish third.

Again, in the Dholka constituency, Congress lost by a margin of 327 votes. Significantly, in this seat, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Nationalist Congress Party bagged 3,139 and 1,198 votes, respectively.
Similarly at the Fatepura seat, where BJP won by a margin of 2,711 votes over the Congress, the NCP candidate got 2747 votes. The NCP played spoiler for the Congress here.

Congress lost the Botad seat by a margin of 906 votes where BSP bagged 966 votes. Three independents collectively got around 7,500 votes here. So BSP and independents cost the Congress this seat.

The BJP had its share of narrow misses as well. Apart from Kaprada constituency, the party lost the Mansa seat by a vote of 524 votes and the Deodar seat by 972 votes.
 
Takeaways for the opposition Congress Party from the Gujarat Elections
 
1) Significant increase in votes received
 
2) Seats that slipped:
a. Congress could not hold on 15 seats that it win in 2012. That made the difference.
b. Of these 4 were ST seats. Last time it had won 3 of these 4 huge margins of 15-25 thousand votes.
c. Another four seats were those, in which sitting MLAs have lost to the BJP.
d. It was these seats that made a difference between forming the government and opposition.
 
3) Impact of revolt by Vaghela neutralised
a. Out of 14 seats, where its MLAs had defected to BJP, Congress won 10.
b. Another 2 it narrowly lost by margins of 258 and 1164 votes.
c. Congress won both the seats held by Shankar Singh Vaghela and his son, i.e. Kapadvanj and Bayad by huge margins of 27,226 and 7901 votes. This must come as satisfaction to Congress.
d. The party floated by Shankar Singh Vaghela got only 84 thousand votes in total!
 
4) Congress lost 16 seats in a tight contest:
a. Congress lost 3 seats with margins less than 1000 votes.
b. Congress lost 5 seats with margins between 1000-2000 votes.
c. Congress lost 8 seats with margins between 2000-3000 votes.
d. BJP lost 12 seats in close fights.
e. BJP lost four seats with margin less than 1000 votes.
f. BJP lost five seats with margins between 1000-2000 votes.
g. BJP lost three seats with margins between 2000-3000 votes.
 
5) Disaster in cities
a. Congress won only 3 out of 36 city seats!
b. In semi urban seats, Congress won 12 out of 27 seats
c. In rural areas, Congress+ won 65 out of 119 seats. BJP won 51. 
d. Congress alliance won 13 out 21 tribal seats with an average margin of over 17 thousand votes.
 
6) Margins
a. Congress lost 15 sitting seats to BJP.
b. BJP retained 82 sitting seats with reduced margins.
c. The average margin of BJP victory is 29967 votes.
d. The average margin of Congress victory is 13354 votes.
e. In 33 city seats, the average margin of BJP victory is 47626 votes.
f. In semi-urban seats, average margin of BJP victory is 20526 and Congress is14249.
g. In rural areas, the average margin of BJP victory is 21316 and of Congress is 13155.
h. In ST seats, the average margin of BJP victory is 19,716 and Congress is over 17,218.
 
7) What clicked for Congress
a. It ran a successful campaign.
b. It was able to communicate with voters.
c. Rahul Gandhi led from the front and connected with the voters.
d. The social media campaign was a hit.
e. It could respond quickly to issues raised by BJP and PM.
f. It successfully formed social alliances.
g. It very well connected with rural voters.
h. It managed the seats of the defected MLAs well.
 
 What didn’t click for Congress
a. It had a poor ground level organization.
b. It lacked a proper response to BJP’s aggression on ‘Nationalism’ and its ‘Anti-muslim’ propaganda.
c. It fell short of social engineering at the ‘sub-caste’ level.
d. It is still not able to connect with a large section of urban voters. 
e. Social media defamation of Congress and Rahul Gandhi in cities still has a negative impact.
f. The GST and employment campaign did have a resonance, but more was required to address aspirational urban voter, who needs to be communicated of Congress record of economic progress, infrastructure development etc.
g. An answer required against the charges of corruption, most of which emerged from the notional losses projected by CAG in UPA regime.
 
 

The post Some Facts, Figures & Comments on the Gujarat Elections appeared first on SabrangIndia.

AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj claimed that anyone knowing a “secret code” could tamper with the EVMs and the code could be fed into a machine while casting vote.

The Election Commission has time and again rubbished allegations that EVMs can be programmed to favour any particular party.

Before Bhardwaj’s demonstration, Kejriwal tweeted, “Saurabh Bhardwaj will reveal the truth behind a big conspiracy in the country. Satyameva Jayate”.

Bhardwaj, who represents the Greater Kailash constituency, claimed that in his capacity as an computer science engineer, he had extensively worked in this area and was aware of how the machines could be fiddled with.

He said, “There are secret codes that can be used to decide on the day of voting which candidate can win… Give us access to the EVMs that will be used in the Gujarat elections (later this year) for only three hours…I challenge the BJP will never be able to win there then.”

His comments caused a huge laughter in the assembly.

The authenticity of EVMs has been a topic of intense scrutiny since the results for the five assembly elections were announced on 11  March.

Both AAP and the BSP had alleged a large-scale EVM fraud, which according to them had helped the BJP secure historic mandate in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission said that if the machine used by Bharadwaj was a prototype, then using it to declare that the machines used in polls can also be hacked is not true.

Quoting an EC official, HT reported that an FIR will be registered against AAP if it’s found that the party had procured a machine from its storage room.

“If it’s proven that the machine is stolen, then FIR will be filed against the party,” EC offical was quoted by HT.

Courtesy: Janta Ka Reporter
 

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When media reports appeared on April 1 that electronic voting machines had spewed out slips showing just the symbol of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the lotus, during a demonstration by election officials in Madhya Pradesh, rival political parties were quick to latch on to them.

In March, in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati had alleged that the voting machines used in Assembly polls held in the state in February-March had been rigged by the BJP. Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party had made similar allegations about machines used in the Punjab polls conducted simultaneously.

So when reports said the electronic voting machines used in Uttar Pradesh had travelled to Madhya Pradesh for bypolls in Ater constituency in Bhind district and Bandhavgarh constituency in Umaria district that are scheduled for Sunday, and a paper audit trail had dispensed only slips with the BJP symbol, they caused much alarm. The incident also led to the suspension of 19 officials, including a district collector and a superintendent of police.

A committee set up by the Election Commission has found that there was no truth in the allegations.

Scroll.in travelled to Bhind to investigate the allegations and speak to journalists who were the first to report the story and officials who were present at the demonstration on March 31. An examination of the reports that appeared in newspapers and on TV channels suggests that misreporting by one newspaper seems to have made it all the way to the national media.

What happened on March 31

On the afternoon of March 31, the Madhya Pradesh chief electoral officer, Saleena Singh, held a media briefing at a hall in the zila parishad building in Bhind town to discuss election preparedness in Ater constituency. Among those present were top officials of the state election commission, former District Collector Ilayaraja T, Superintendent of Police Anil Singh Kushwah, a group of mediapersons and a senior zila parishad officer, among a few others. During the briefing, Singh talked about the voter-verifiable paper audit trail machine and how it works in conjunction with the electronic voting machine. She went on to give an impromptu demonstration of how the audit trail works.

A VVPAT machine records each vote on paper and allows the voter to verify the paper record while casting the vote electronically. A slip with the chosen party symbol appears on a display screen for seven seconds and then automatically drops inside the machine.

As Singh pressed a button, the lotus symbol with the name of Satyadev Pachauri – the winning BJP candidate from Govind Nagar constituency in Kanpur during the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, whose results were declared on March 11 – appeared on the display screen of the VVPAT machine. On seeing the lotus symbol, some reporters suggested in jest that the machine was biased towards the BJP. Singh responded to the comments. She laughed and warned them against reporting on such lines, saying she would take them to the police station if they did.

Some reporters took offence at the remark, even as Singh and her team of election officials went on to press at least two other buttons.

Till here, all the versions in the press reports match. The divergence is over what happened next.

A widely circulated video of the incident shows Singh’s exchange of remarks with the journalists while she tested the electronic voting machine but it does not show the results on the VVPAT machine.

What local papers reported

Three major Hindi newspapers have offices in Bhind – Patrika, Dainik Bhaskar and Nayi Duniya – and all three had reporters present at the briefing. There is a stringer who contributes to two major news agencies but he was not at the event. A stringer for Hindi news channel Aaj Tak was also present, among a few others.

Patrika headline on April 1: “Demo mein pehli parchi nikli Bhajpa ki, Congress ne kaha ballot paper se ho chunao” (BJP slip first to come out during demo, Congress asks for polls to be conducted with ballot paper)

The front-page report said the first slip that emerged from the VVPAT machine during the demonstration displayed the BJP symbol, and after some mediapersons raised questions, Singh threatened them. It went on to quote Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Govind Singh suggesting that the electronic voting machines were tampered with and asking for voting through ballot paper. The report did not say what results had emerged on the VVPAT machine after the buttons on the electronic voting machine were pressed twice more.

The report in Patrika on April 1 says the first slip to come out was that of the BJP with its lotus symbol.

However, the paper carried a second article next to the main report – headlined “Loktantra ki hatya ka prayas: Govind Singh” (Attempt to murder democracy: Govind Singh) – which had Congress leader Govind Singh’s take on the controversy. And in the continuation of that second story on an inside page, the reporter quoted the Congress leader as saying that BJP slips had come out twice when button number four of the electronic voting machine was pressed.

The continuation of the second report on Patrika.

When contacted, the chief of Patrika’s reporting team in Bhind, Ramanand Soni, said, “Lotus slip [symbol of the BJP] did not appear twice and we have reported the facts correctly.” The reporter, Subhash Tripathi, too stood by his story.

Nai Duniya headline on April 1: “Mukkhya Nirvachan Padashikari hass kar boli – press mein dia toh thane mein baithaenge” (Chief electoral officer jokingly said if you put it in the press, I will take you to the police station).

According to the report, the slips from the VVPAT machine emerged in this sequence: the first one showed the BJP’s lotus symbol, the second showed the Rashtriya Lok Dal’s hand pump, and the third showed the Congress’ hand. The report said the election officer asked the reporters not to publish anything about the VVPAT slips. Speaking to Scroll.in, the reporter, Abbas Ahmed, vouched for the accuracy of his report.

A senior officer of the district collectorate, who did not wish to be identified, and the chief executive officer of the zila parishad in Bhind, both present for the demonstration, also narrated the same sequence of slips.

The Nai Duniya report on April 1, whose headline focused on the exchange of words between the chief electoral officer and reporters.

Dainik Bhaskar headline on April 1: “EVM ka do baar button dabaya toh print huwa kamal ka chinh” (Pressed twice, EVM buttons produced slip with the lotus symbol)
The report said the BJP slip appeared twice even though the election officers pressed two different buttons.

When asked about the difference between his account and the reports published in other newspapers, the Dainik Bhaskar reporter, Lajpat Agarwal, initially said he did not see anything clearly after the first two buttons pressed by the Chief Electoral Officer but he saw the election officials pressing four buttons in total.

“The symbol of the flower [Lotus] had appeared but whether she had pressed the same button corresponding to the Lotus, there is no clarity on that. But a lotus slip had emerged,” he said. He still did not clarify at what point he saw two lotus slips emerging on the VVPAT machine.

He then went on to say how Saleena Singh’s remarks had offended reporters. When pointed to the Nai Duniya report that said the slips had appeared in a particular sequence, he said that account was correct. Asked why then he had reported that there were two slips with the BJP symbol, he turned defensive and claimed he had seen two slips displaying the lotus symbol lying near the VVPAT machine.

The last claim is questionable. As far as the functioning of the VVPAT machine is concerned, the paper slips drop only in a container inside the machine.

Ravindra Jharkhariya, news editor of Dainik Bhaskar’s Gwalior office, to which the team in Bhind reports, claimed his was the only paper to have published the facts correctly. He refused to comment on the sequence of slips reported in other publications.

“If there was no problem in the VVPAT machine and BJP slip had not appeared twice, why did Ms Singh threaten the media?” he asked, adding, “The Election Commission is now trying to suppress the issue through its report [ruling out tampering].”

The Dainik Bhaskar reported that two slips of the BJP symbol were produced during the demonstration in Bhind.

Report of Election Commission

On Friday, the Election Commission published its report on the incident in which it clearly stated that four buttons were pressed on the electronic voting machine and four separate slips were produced in the VVPAT machine. It clarified the sequence as – hand pump (Rashtriya Lok Dal), lotus (BJP), hand pump (Rashtriya Lok Dal) and hand (Congress). No news reporter contacted by us, however, happened to have noticed the first hand pump symbol.

The national media

It took a day for the story to make it to national newspapers. On April 2, the Indian Express published a report with the headline “Madhya Pradesh EVM trial reignites ‘tampering’ row, EC calls for report”.

Since it did not have a reporter in Bhind, the newspaper relied on the reports that had appeared in the local papers. It began by saying: “Following reports that a Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail [VVPAT] machine used during a trial in Madhya Pradesh only dispensed slips with the BJP’s poll symbol…” But then, it also went on to reflect the confusion over what had happened in Bhind.

“There were varying reports of what transpired during the trial,” it said. “Some reports said the VVPAT machine dispensed slips with the BJP’s lotus symbol twice, although different buttons were pressed on the EVM. Another version, however, said different symbols were printed.”

The Times of India, however, dispensed with caution and termed the electronic voting machines “faulty”. In a report published on April 3, it said, “The EVM that triggered nationwide controversy after reeling out BJP voter slips during a dummy test in Bhind was routed here from Kanpur after being used in the UP assembly poll, an Election Commission team said on Sunday after testing it.”

While reporting that the VVPAT machines dispensed slips showing only the BJP symbol, NDTV attributed it to local media reports.

A report on Aaj Tak said: “EVM fails trial test in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhind. As soon as a button on an EVM was pressed, the BJP candidate’s slip appeared on the VVPAT. Election Commission has sought a report on the matter.” The Aaj Tak stringer, Sarvesh Purohit, told Scroll.in that the BJP symbol did not appear twice, but he refused to say what he had communicated to his office.

A story on ABP News, however, claimed the VVPAT machine had produced two BJP slips. The reporter in the piece-to-camera is Brijesh Rajput, a Bhopal-based correspondent. Reporters present at the trial said Rajput was not at the venue on March 31.

When contacted, Rajput said button number four on the electronic voting machine was pressed twice – once by an Election Commission officer and once by chief electoral officer Saleena Singh. “So technically paper slips corresponding to BJP appeared twice on the VVPAT. But what actually created a controversy was the exchange of words between Saleena Singh and some journalists,” he said. Rajput admitted that he was not present at the demonstration, but said he had received information from reliable reporters who had attended it.

There is still a catch there. In his telephonic report during the news show, Rajput tactically avoids saying “two different buttons”.

The Dainik Bhaskar report, however, said that though different buttons were pressed, the BJP slip had appeared on the VVPAT machine.

What Election Commission said

The Election Commission sent a committee of officials to Bhind to investigate the allegations. On Friday, it held a press conference in Delhi where it announced, “The probe concluded that the EVMs used in the demo in Bhind was not brought from Uttar Pradesh. However, the VVPAT used in the demonstration was brought from UP.”

Chief electoral officer Saleena Singh was not available on phone on Saturday. But Sanjay Singh Baghel, the state-level nodal officer (Madhya Pradesh) in her office, clarified on the controversy. “The CEO’s remark [about taking reporters to the police station] that was highlighted in the media was technically correct but said in an informal manner,” Bagel told Scroll.in on Saturday.

He added, “First, the VVPAT machine did not show wrong slips. The problem was that it was not cleared. Second, misreporting on VVPAT results can attract punishment under Rule 45MA of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, and so the CEO warned some media persons against doing so. The police station remark was in relation to potential violation of the rule, which is punishable by imprisonment and/or penalty and/or both. But it was said in a highly informal manner.”

According to Baghel, the matter was blown out of proportion after some political parties (he did not name any) took to social media and the entire narrative changed. “However, a few media organisations had reported the matter right on the first day itself,” he pointed out.

So what happened, actually?

Officials said the problem was that the demonstration on March 31 was unplanned. The protocol for a demonstration is that the machines used are reconfigured with random symbols – not the symbols of the BJP, Congress or any other party in the election fray. The Election Commission clarified that the confusion took place because old data stored in the machine in Uttar Pradesh had not been removed. The Hindu reported, “The machine, that was kept in reserve for the Uttar Pradesh polls, had undergone a standard protocol of randomisation and loading of symbols, but the old symbols were not removed ahead of the same procedure at Bhind in Madhya Pradesh.”

Republished with permission from Scroll.

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The National Committee on Electoral Reforms set up by the Indian Radical Humanists Association has written to the Chief Election Commission (CEC) asking it to ensure that as per the Supreme Court’s 2013 order, only electronic voting machines (EVMs) equipped with voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) are used in the forthcoming Assembly elections in Gujarat.

Else, the Association has demanded that the CEC revert to paper ballots. It has also expressed the view that paper ballots are the ideal and the safest way for conducting elections in a democracy.

The letter addressed to Dr Nasim Zaidi, Chief Election Commissioner dated April 5 has sought a meeting with the CEC to press home the demand.

A note attached to the letter draws the CECs attention to the October 2013 Supreme Court judgement on the use of EVMs.

A writ petition was filed in the apex court in 2009 questioning the claim that EVMs cannot be tampered with or manipulated. The Supreme Court disposed of the petition asking the petitioners to pursue the matter with the CEC.

The matter was then taken up by political parties with the CEC. The latter appointed a technical experts committee to look into the complaints. Following trials the experts committee opined that EVMs equipped with VVPAT must be used during elections and the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 was accordingly amended.

Thereafter followed an important judgment of the Supreme Court in October 2013, in the case of Dr Subramanian Swamy vs Election Commission of India wherein the apex court ruled:
 

Taking a pragmatic view of the matter the Supreme Court gave discretionary powers to the CEC to introduce EVMs with VVPAT system to the extent practical for the 2014 general elections. It simultaneously directed the government of India “to provide required financial assistance for procurement of units of VVPAT”.

The CEC had told the court the purchase of VVPATs for all 13 lakh EVMs will cost around Rs 1,690 crore. This by no means is an astronomical figure.

Once again, the CEC has been faced with allegations of large scale tampering of EVMs during the recently concluded Assembly elections in several states, including UP and Punjab, and the demand by several political parties to revert to paper ballots.

While insisting there was no tampering, the CEC has also expressed its helplessness in procuring VVPAT units for all EVMs since the Centre has not made funds available.
But as reported by Sabrang India, with clear evidence of tampering of an EVM in MP recently, the reliability of EVMs is once again in serious question.

“The CEC does not have to beg the Centre for funds. Given the clear directive of the Supreme Court in 2013 it must demand it”, Gautam Thaker, national president of the Indian Radical Humanists Association told Sabrang India.

EVMs have been used for elections in India since 1989.

Concerned with ensuring free and fair elections in the face of recurring allegations of tampering of EVMs, the Association appointed a National Electoral Reforms Committee headed by Justice Hosbet Suresh, former judge of the Bombay High Court. The other members of the Committee are Dr Jagdeep Chhokar (ADR), Suresh Mehta former chief minister of Gujarat, Sanjay Parikh, Senior Supreme Court lawyers and others. The letter to the CEC follows the deliberations of the Committee.
 

The post CEC must follow SC order; ensure EVMs with paper trail or use paper ballot for Gujarat polls: Electoral Reforms Committee appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Update: The Election Commission has sought a detailed report from the district poll authorities in Bhind, Madhya Pradesh on media reports that VVPAT was only dispensing slips of BJP symbol during a demonstration exercise, PTI reports. An Assembly bypoll is due in Bhind next week and the demonstration was part of the familiarisation exercise.

“We have sought a detailed report from district election officer and would come up with a response in the evening,” a Commission spokesperson said. The voters see Voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) slip for seven seconds, which would be an acknowledgement receipt for the party they voted for in the election.

This Video has gone Viral and that's not a surprise. In the post-truth era where the media is being lured away from dispassionate investigations, it is no wonder that it is on Facebook that this EVM Scam has been unearthed. And its a development that could give credence to allegations of election fraud.

An EVM machine with VVPAT attached, to be used for the forthcoming April 9 bypoll in Madhya Pradesh’s Ater has been found to be designed to only vote in favour of the BJP candidate. Could dozens or thousands or lakhs of such EVMs then be programmed to achieve such results? In Maharashtra, UP, Gujarat, the North East?
 
What is worse is the apparent subversion by the office of the election commission. The video of Madhya Pradesh’s Chief Electoral Officer, Salina Singh, carrying out inspection of EVM machine in the constituency has now gone viral.

In the video (above), Singh is seen surrounded by several election officials who try to test the accuracy of the machine by pressing the number four button of a VVPAT machine.

However to everyone’s utter shock, the paper receipt showed the vote had in fact gone in favour of the BJP, whose election symbol, lotus, was against the first button and not the number four button.

When questioned, Singh asked the reporters not to report the incident adding that the act could land them in jail.

Will there be an Investigation? Will the officer be questioned, even prosecuted? Is there Justice for All?
 
 

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