In 2019, BJP won massively, but EC lost its credibility. 370+ constituencies reported mismatch of Votes between registered and counted. When pressed for explanation, EC silently removed the Cote count web-pages. When the VVPAT Paper votes are required to be stored for a year, EC silently destroyed the VVPAT papers in four months after Election.
“Prima facie, it appears to be a serious issue. I am not aware of any such occurrence (where votes polled didn’t match with votes counted) in the past, that is, during my tenure as chief election commissioner.”
- – O P Rawat, Former Chief Election Commissioner
Now, BJP and EC being partners in crime can afford to remain silent. What is perplexing is the sore loser of the Election, Congress, did not bother to work through this, as if they are busy into their next vacation Plan, as if Indian voters can wait for transparent elections, but Thailand beaches cannot afford to wait.
Let’s validate the arguments for and against EVM.
- EVMs are supposed to stop Booth capturing and illegal voting happened with paper ballots.
The 1980s, Booth capturing happened in Gunda ruled States without any irrefutable evidence. But now we are in the digital age where every polling booth has closed circuit cameras keeping such blatant violence in check. Even if such incidents happen, EC can re-poll the affected Booths. So, this is again a simple excuse of convenience for the Ruling Party.
- EVM makes easy and swift counting of votes.
Valid argument made invalid, with the Lok Sabha Elections happens in phases for 60-90 days across India. If we could host Elections in leisure, we can count it slowly too to ensure everything is properly vetted. EVM currently is a Blackbox without offering any forensic evidence of tampering, compared to a transparent and sized up paper ballot. So, the only advantage remains is that EVMs are concise and easy to be tampered.
- EVM cannot be hacked.
EVM was equated to a calculator, by ECI to offer us a perspective of a Dumb Machine just capable of counting till 2000. But , before 2019 Lok Sabha Polls, EC introduced VVPAT which acts as connecting intermediary between the Button Poll Unit and Calculator Unit. Now VVPAT also gets connected to Laptop which is not vetted by ECI during Polling. So now we can safely conclude that, the EVM is a good as Laptop with super computing and bypassing powers to manipulate Votes to the Counting Unit.
- EVM Calculator don’t know Candidates or Party Symbols:
This is again an argument which holds good pre-2019 Polls, as there was no VVPAT involved connecting to the Counting Unit. Now VVPAT slips needs to be printed with party Symbols, Time and Candidate name. So everything gets pre-programmed by ECI with the M3, the new generation EVMs.
Earlier, the EVMs were randomised and the candidates list were also randomised. But now the entire randomisation happens centrally from ECI, making them fully control the voting Process.
- EVMs cannot be tampered.
In all Polls, we get news of EVMs recovered from Politicians / Pliant Bureaucrat vehicles.
- In March 2022 Polls, EVMs were mass transported in Modi’s Varanasi constituency and exposed by the Samajwadi Party workers. The District Magistrate got suspended and the matter got shushed in the pliant Media. While counting, BJP made a clean sweep of Varanasi winning all 8 seats.
- Again, SP workers caught hold of EVM boxes in Adityanath’s Gorakhpur and Adityanath won by a margin of 1 Lakh. Incidentally, Samajwadi Party won Gorakhpur by-election in 2018.
- In 2019 LS Polls, BJP Ally ADMK won just one constituency, Theni out of 40 in Tamilnadu. We got reported of a similar unauthorised EVM transportation.
Now, EVMs has a case of getting tampered wholesale like in above scenarios, it could also be tampered wireless, thanks to the VVPAT circuit innovation benefiting anyone ruling over ECI.
Again in Theni, stronghold of O Panneer Selvam (OPS), a BJP loyalist garbed in ADMK attire, strange Wifi signals are reported at Chettikarai Govt College where the EVMs were stored. ECI also stored unused EVMs in the college. Maybe it could be a coincidence that DMK lost just one seat in Theni out of 4 to OPS.
In Bilhaur UP, SP candidate alleged Wifi tampering of EVMs and he lost in a similar fashion. It started with some Jio Engineers accidentally got stuck up at Strong rooms with WiFi manipulating equipments, few years back and the fairy tale gets repeated happily ever after.
- EVMs can be audited for integrity.
Now, this is a half-baked claim. It’s as good as saying Hitler was democratic because he won his first Election democratically. ECI claims all is well with the introduction of VVPAT where the voter knows to whom he voted. Well, the voter knows to whom he pressed button, but nobody knows to whom it gets counted as VVPAT connected to Laptop controls what goes into the counting Unit.
The ultimate claim is that VVPAT count will be tallied with the EVM for a dubious sampling rate. Again the control and randomisation lies with ECI and anybody rules ECI could dictate the outcome.
Finally, VVPAT slips which are mandated to be stored for a year from Elections, for any recounts, got destroyed by ECI in four months, the only indicator on EVM manipulation by the No-Data-Available Government.
Resolution:
EVMS remind us of a fake story, where NASA engineers toiled hard for a pen which works in Space against gravity. Russian Engineers were able to solve it with a pencil.
Currently, EVMs are that Innovation-overdose for a poor democracy, whose only benefit is swift counting of Votes, as if everything else is happening like a clock-work in India and Indians are too impatient to await a manual fool-proof count.
EVMs are dumb electronic equipments, as good or bad as the User who controls it. For enforcing neutrality in Elections, the Opposition should claim the following review of Election Process.
- Randomisation of EVMs and Candidate list should happen manually under all Parties observation, rather centrally at ECI, as it happened before 2019. VVPAT should be flexible and programmable that it should be randomisation-agnostic.
- VVPAT is useless if the audit trail is not counted with a decent sampling rate. There is no utility in VVPAT, if it’s getting destroyed in 4 months, without getting audited properly. The Sampling should be increased after Election.
- ECI should provide the transparent tally of Votes polled and Votes Counted across all Polling Booths. The current method of completely deleting the count information makes it suspicious of its independent governance.
- VVPAT slips should not be destroyed in few months and stored to allow scrutinising for future.
- Just like Re-polling happened for Booth capturing earlier, re-polling should happen in case of any suspected Strong Room unauthorised guests or suspicious Wifi signals or CCTV failures or VVPAT tally with Votes Polled vs Counted.
- Only polled EVMs should be stored in Strong Rooms. Other unused EVMs should not be kept near Strong rooms.
- The rooms or area adjacent to Strong rooms should be devoid of any Computers or Wifi transmitters. This should be vetted by all the parties before Strong room is used for storage.
- The Transportation of EVMs should happen in a secure manner involving all Parties’ Supervision.
- Tampering an EVM well before Election is a cumbersome process and prone to risk as it gets exposed across Parties and Voters. But EVM swaps and tampering is quite easy one-time hack provided ECI provides the EVMs required for Swaps. So EVMs need to be audited before and after Elections. Unused EVMs also need to be vetted for any malpractice.
- Elections happening over Months, makes Strong Room tampering quite easy. They just need a blind spot of an Hour in 60 days. BJP seems to have high success rate in early Phases of Elections, rather in last phases. In 2022 UP election, SP had >50% success rate in last few phases but lost to BJP in earlier phases. Elections should have a time-limit rather running it for months.
- Opposition should initiate Judicial proceedings to ensure the authenticity and validity of electoral process. Such pressure on EC and Rulers will ensure them to be cautious. Nowadays, the EVMs are omnipresent even in garbage trucks in between Polling and Counting.
Timepass Politics 