Can Tell You 10 Ways In Which EVMs Can Be Tampered, Says ‘IIT Engineer’ Arvind Kejriwal

Yesterday, in the bypolls, the party came third in the by-election that its candidate lost his deposit.

Updated on: 14 April 2017 7:48 pm

A day after losing its deposit in by-election in Delhi’s Rajouri, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal refused to accept that the Delhiites are unhappy with AAP government instead he said that people were unhappy after Jarnail left the seat.

"Even I was getting feedback that the people of the constituency were unhappy over Jarnail leaving in the middle of his term," Kejriwal said as the party came third in the by-election that its candidate lost his deposit.

For the AAP, the slide in vote share in Rajaouri bypoll has been steep, from 47 per cent in 2015 to 13 per cent in the current one. The BJP's share has increased from 38 per cent in 2015 to 52 per cent in 2017

The Delhi Chief Minister, however, said that this defeat will have no impact in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections to be held on April 23.

Maintaining his stand on the issue of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), Kejriwal in an interview to NDTV again accused the Election Commission of going out of its was to help BJP.

"I am an engineer from IIT... I can tell you 10 ways in which EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) can be tampered," he said to the channel, challenging the Commission which has said that voting machines cannot be gamed.

The debate over reliability of EVMs attained a feverish pitch after one EVM in Madhya Pradesh allegedly registered only BJP votes. The machine was identified during a mock trial at a polling station, where it “malfunctioned” in full view of the media and representatives of political parties. The EVM was to be deployed at an April 9 byelection to Ater assembly seat in Bhind district.

The Congress, Aam Aadmi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party enjoyed a sense of vindication, which is matched by the denunciatory tone—equal and opposite in vigour—of their critics as well as opponents.

The ECI has even reportedly challenged anyone to prove that its machines can be hacked.

“From the first week of May, experts, scientists, technocrats can come for a week or 10 days and try to hack the machines,” an official source said. They said the challenge will be open for a week or 10 days and will have various levels.

In an Outlook’s magazine story, The ECI reiterated the machines as safe, citing an India-specific reason: the EVMs are standalone, not connected to each other by wire or airwave, unlike the case with other countries. The poll body has also countered the more serious charge of EVMs being rigged. The machines cannot be pre-set to make a party win, it reassures, pointing to the wholesale adoption of a special new device. Called ‘voter verifiable paper audit trail’ or VVPAT, it prints an accompanying slip that confirms the voter’s selection. This, the ECI believes, will put an end to the growing scepticism.

Political parties, led by Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP, want ballot vote to return.

First, those who are critical of EVMs ever since the Bhind episode are getting it completely wrong. The errors, if any, were with the printer there and not with the voting machine. “The VVPAT is just a printer. It doesn’t record a vote,” an ECI official explains. “See, in Bhind, we just wanted to show how the VVPAT works, not how voting machines work,” said an ECI official.

A VVPAT allows the voter to see whom he or she has voted for. The slip it throws up records the name, serial number and symbol of the candidate selected. The slip can’t be taken home by the voter, but is visible through a screen—for seven seconds—once the vote is cast on the EVM. After this, the printout automatically falls into a sealed box, never coming into the voter’s hands. Reason: in the event of a known EVM fault or dispute, the printouts can be counted to ascertain the electoral result. If the VVPAT can go wrong, the seeds of doubt get sown. Thus, this is one perception the ECI seeks to fight, repeatedly, clarifying that the Bhind was not a pattern but, possibly, an error under investigation.

The intricacies apart, some feel all isn’t well with the system. “One should have the right to choose how to vote—by paper ballot or EVM,” says Dr Anand Rai, the Vyapam scam whistleblower. “It’s not about winning or losing. Many popular, previously-successful leaders are losing by massive margins. This trend is baffling. I feel it is bad to not address it.” If government officials get postal ballots, so should ordinary voters, he adds.

India is switching to VVPATs for the 2019 parliamentary elections, but getting over this transition will take time. “We have placed proposals before for requisite funds to replace older machines,” says Sudeep Jain, the director-general of the ECI, in Delhi. The original funding proposal, made in January 2014, was for Rs 3,174 crore. The subsequent NDA government has announced it will release Rs 2,000 crore. At 2013 prices, a VVPAT machine costs about Rs 20,000. Possibly, prices will change once the Goods and Services Tax is rolled out in July.

The ECI, as a rule, also phases out a voting machine after 15 years of service. Thus, around 9.30 lakh voting machines will expire between 2016 and 2019. This year, it is supposed to replace a little over 19 lakh machines. Around 33 lakh will be due for replacement next year and another 12 lakh by 2019-20 so as to meet its target (of complete replacement).

The other option is to replace 14 lakh machines with a new-generation EVM. Named ‘M3 type’, this variety ceases to function if there is an attempt to tamper with it. This will require over Rs 5,500 crore. The choice, therefore, is between moving wholesale to VVPAT or to switch to the new kind of machine. That said, the government has not provided for such massive funding.