BJP says exit polls will fall flat on counting day – I wonder where this confidence comes from. Are they counting on the fact that in many booths, whatever party voters selected, their votes were registering in the BJP’s account? After the murkiness of Lok Sabha results especially in Banaras, with EVMs found in officials’ homes before election day and 3 lakh duplicate voters on the lists, the Election Commission’s ‘clarifications’ raising more questions than they answered, such possibilities no longer seem paranoid.
(The Election Commission said that in Banaras it found 6.47 lakh duplicated names, all of which are repeated at least once across the state. The official said, however, that these are not all necessarily fake entries in the rolls. They could be people who share a name. “For instance, a ‘Rajesh, son of Ramesh’, might be found several times in UP,” he said. “We are in the process of checking whether these people are same or different.”
The question is, when the process was to compare both the voter’s as well as his/her father’s name with other voters, how were 6.5 lakh duplicate names found in a constituency with 17 lakh voters?)
But my point in this post is not about electoral rolls, and a growing suspicion among many that the EC is not entirely un-compromised.
My point is that Electronic Voting Machines are extremely problematic from the point of view of exercising the democratic right to vote (not to mention costs) and have been given up by many ‘advanced’ countries after trying them out for some years. Whatever happens in this particular election, it is time for Indian citizens to think seriously about whether EVMs should be retained.
First of all, despite the EC’s continued claims, the fact is that EVMs are notoriously, easily manipulable. Worse still, once manipulated, there is no way of actually knowing what happens after the button is pushed, because there is no paper trail, nothing to show that your vote has registered in the right place.
An electronic machine in North Carolina (USA) lost roughly 4,500 votes in a 2004 statewide race after it simply stopped recording votes. The race was ultimately decided by fewer than 2000 votes.
“Now what do you do?” Pamela Smith, president of election watchdog Verified Voting, asked – “You can’t really do a recount. There’s nothing to count.”
How does the EC explain the number of ‘faulty’ EVMs that were found before (and during) the Delhi elections that lit up for BJP, whatever button was pushed? We brought to Kafila readers’ notice a message from an AAP volunteer who “attended the the preparation of Electronic Voting Machine on 31st January & 1st February and he noticed some discrepancies in the EVMs of Booth No. 26, 47A, 75 & 87. Whichever button he was pushing the vote was being cast in favour of BJP only. However, after his objection the EVM machines were replaced.“
Yesterday, while Delhi was voting, this piece of information was posted in Facebook by Rakesh Kumar Singh:
इस सूचना की जांच की जाए: Booth 171, Prajapati Baraat Ghar, Indira Park, Anoop Nagar, Uttam Nagar. Faulty EVM: all votes going to BJP. (Via Sweta Singh)
Was this checked? In how many booths was this happening? There was also a report from Ghazipur about the same problem.
India’s Deputy Election Commissioner, Alok Shukla, responded that even getting hold of machines to tamper with would be very difficult, and the number of EVMs is so huge that tampering on an impossible scale would be required.
However, elections can be manipulated through just a few well chosen booths in a few well chosen constituencies.
Halderman was deported from Delhi Airport when he landed with a valid visa in December 2013, with no reason given for the action. Earlier, the Election Commission had challenged Hari Prasad to demonstrate how EVMs could be tampered with. The EC, however, withheld access to the EVMs.
Despite widespread reports of election irregularities and suspicions of electronic fraud,the Election Commission has never permitted security researchers to complete an independent evaluation. Hari and others in India repeatedly offered to collaborate with the Election Commission to better understand the security of the machines,but they were not permitted to complete a serious review.
Indian election authorities have repeatedly claimed that the machines are tamperproof, but we demonstrated important vulnerabilities by studying a machine provided by an anonymous source. The story took a disturbing turn when my co-author, Hari Prasad, was arrested by Indian authorities demanding to know the identity of that source.
An article in The Huffington Post in May 2014 said:
The problems with EVM security have been widely known since the large-scale irregularities in Florida during the 2000 elections.
Many countries have moved to get rid of them. In 2006 Dutch TV aired a documentary showing how easy it was to hack the EVMs that were about to be used in their general election. The machines were subsequently withdrawn and the Netherlands went back to paper ballots.
Ireland spent close to $75 million on its EVMs, but an independent commission found two years later that the lack of a paper trail and security issues meant they could not be used, and Ireland literally scrapped the machines.
The German Supreme Court ruled in March 2009 that electronic voting was unconstitutional since the machines contradict the public nature of elections.
Interestingly, The Huffington Post article was expressing concern that while exit polls predicted Modi’s win, Congress might have manipulated EVMs to its own benefit.
There have already been reports of serious EVM malfunction, with two machines reportedly transferring all votes cast to Congress…Those who have the upper hand this time, may not be so lucky next time. Do they really want to open that box?
If the Congress did indeed play this game in 2009, it clearly failed in 2014. The BJP appears to have mastered that art much better. Their pockets are of course, immeasurably deeper – take a look at the full page newspaper advertisement supporting Modi put out by the Confederation of Indian Industries on voting day!
In Pakistan, the Election Commission’s Director General Information Technology Khizar Aziz told a parliamentary body that the software used by EVMs could be manipulated to affect the results. He said that EVMs installed at polling stations were vulnerable to hacking via Bluetooth signals and other forms of wireless connectivity, and that the machines could even be tampered with while in storage.
At the very least, EVMs should be equipped with Vote Verifier Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) systems, that enable EVMs to record each vote cast. In the 2014 elections, only 8 of the 543 total constituencies had these, despite a Supreme Court order. The EC cited several reasons for its inability to comply with the Court’s order, not the least of which is the prohibitive cost of these systems.
If European countries are not ashamed to cite the huge costs of running EVMs as one of the reasons, apart from manipulability, that pushed them to drop EVMs, why should India hesitate even for one moment, to admit that the EVM experiment has failed, and go back to paper ballots – as many states even in the USA have done?
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
The poll result circulated by BJP loyalists on 6th Feb.
BJP ———-45
AAP ———–22
१ नरेला BJP
२ बुराड़ी CONG
३ तिमारपुर AAP
४ आदर्श नगर BJP
५ बादली AAP
६ रिठाला BJP
७ बवाना (सु) BJP
८ मुंडका BJP
९ किराड़ी AAP
१० सुलतानपुरी (सु) AAP
११ नांगलोई BJP
१२ मंगोलपुरी (सु) AAP
१३ रोहिणी BJP
१४ शालीमार बाग BJP
१५ शकूरपुर बस्ती AAP
१६ त्रिनगर AAP
१७ वजीरपुर BJP
१८ मॉडन टाउन BJP
१९ सदर बाजार BJP
२० चांदनी चौक BJP
२१ मटिया महल AAP
२२ बल्लीमारन BJP
२३ करोल बाग (सु) BJP
२४ पटेल नगर (सु) BJP
२५ मोती नगर AAP
२६ मादीपुर (सु) AAP
२७ राजौरी गार्ड BJP
२८ हरी नगर BJP
२९ तिलक नगर BJP
३० जनकपुरी BJP
३१ विकासपुरी AAP
३२ उत्तम नग AAP
३३ द्वारका BJP
३४ मटियाला BJP
३५ नजफगढ़ BJP
३६ बिजवासन AAP
३७ पालम AAP
३८ दिल्ली कैंट BJP
३९ राजेंद्र नगर BJP
४० नई दिल्ली AAP
४१ जंगपुरा BJP
४२ कस्तुरबा नगर BJP
४३ मालवीय नगर BJP
४४ आरकेपुरम BJP
४५ महरौली CONG
४६ छतरपुर BJP
४७ देवली (सु) AAP
४८ अंबेडकरनगर (सु) AAP
४९ संगम विहार BJP
५० ग्रेटर कैलाश BJP
५१ कालकाजी CONG
५२ तुगलकाबाद AAP
५३ बदरपुर BJP
५४ ओखला BJP
५५ त्रिलोकपुरी (स) AAP
५६ कोंडली (सु) BJP
५७ पटपडग़ंज AAP
५८ लक्ष्मी नगर BJP
५९ विश्वास नगर BJP
६० कृष्णा नगर BJP
६१ गांधी नगर BJP
६२ शाहदरा BJP
६३ सीमापुरी (सु) BJP
६४ रोहतास नगर BJP
६५ सीलमपुर BJP
६६ घौंडा AAP
६७ बाबरपुर BJP
६८ गोकलपुर (सु) AAP
६९ मुस्तफाबाद BJP
७० करावल नगर BJP
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This is exactly the fear I had when I was watching TV yesterday. I hope there will be legal help available should it come to what we are fearing most.
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Yes. We have doubt on EVMs quality. EVMS can easily controlled infavoure of any desired candidates, even From the USA.
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The bravado about exit polls is just usual fare. The Congress expressed the same bravado before the Lok Sabha and 2013 Delhi Assembly results, and the BJP the same before the 2009 Lok Sabha results. Of course, in all cases, the bravado disappeared when the results were declared (as it will this time as well, as AAP will almost certainly win).
However, this is probably the third article I have seen on the issue of duplicate names in Varanasi. It is strange that none of these articles have taken into account that that almost all of these “duplicate names” were actually verified physically. This is what the DM of Varanasi had to say on November 27 (Here is the reference):
The article also points out that certain other constituencies (Azamgarh is singled out as having more than 9 lakh “duplicate” names) where the BJP didn’t win had an even higher number of possibly “duplicate names”.
I am pretty sure that all these conspiracy theories will turn out to just that: “conspiracy theories”, and the BJP will lose the Delhi elections. Perhaps Kafila would publish a correction then (though my previous experience suggests that that is too much to hope for).
There are also several other points where the article does not quite justify its claims:
1) The article also does not take into account that difference in technology between European/American EVMs and Indian ones. The Indian ones are cheaper, and technologically quite simple, and all the “security” is based on simply “physical security” [That no one is able to get physical access to the machines: the same principle that is used for ballots]. All the attacks (including the ones by Halderman and Prasad) that have been demonstrated against Indian EVMs need prolonged physical access to the machines.
2) Unlike what the article seems to claim, the cost of introducing VVPAT have not been described as “prohibitive” by the EC. The linked article quotes an EC official saying the one-time cost of modifying EVMs to do this would be 1500 crores, and this statement was made to a reporter, not to SC. We should compare this with the total cost of holding an LS election (Rs 3500 crores according to EC estimates in 2014). The costs certainly don’t look “prohibitive”, the official’s point seems to have been that they couldn’t get VVPAT In full operation this time because of time and one time cost issues. Given the one time cost of introducing VVPAT is much less that other recurrent expenses of the EC for each election, it seems highly unlikely that going to ballot boxes (which will bring back the problem of booth capturing) will be more cost effective than VVPAT.
3) As for cost comparisons with US or the EU, this is basically like comparing apples and oranges. While the (Indian) EVMs cost in the range of Rs 10,000 per unit, even the older US versions cost in the range of US$ 6,000. It is also worthwhile to note the savings in cost of producing ballot paper at the scale of 80 crore sheets every five years. EVMs have also largely gotten rid of the practice of booth capturing and the political violence that used to accompany it. The article simply does not provide enough evidence that the “EVM experiment has failed”. The fact that a political party we don’t like so much won the elections last time while not being in power does not constitute such evidence.
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I have. fear bjp may play such games.only god.can save.us from such malpractice
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Re-polls have been ordered in 2 stations in Delhi Cantonment and Rohtas Nagar after scrutiny by the EC. Voting will be held today from 8 am to 6 pm.
The reason given for re-polling at the first station is that after mock voting, the presiding officer ‘forgot to erase the mock voting results.’
For the second, the EC official gave the explanation that:
The alertness of the EC officials is to be commended, but setting aside the unlikelihood of a re-poll on a working day attracting the same number of voters, what is highlighted by these anomalies is the irreversible effect in EVMs, of human and machine error. The official said it would have been ‘feasible to count the votes’, but in fact it is not feasible – there is no record of your vote.
I have not come across any order for re-poll in the polling stations mentioned in my post, where all buttons were lighting up BJP’s candidate.
One hopes that the high levels of alertness this time round would have decreased the possibility of foul play, but I do want to reiterate that whatever the results of this election, it is time to seriously rethink the use of EVMs.
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And to the usual lot of comments from Hindutvavaadi trolls and their challenge – will you publish a correction if AAP wins – no, because I have nothing to correct. I argue that the use of EVMs should be stopped immediately, regardless of the results declared. That is very clear in my post.
But you lot might like to remember that it is the BJP that started the campaign against EVMs when Congress won a second term, and I am perfectly open to the possibility that Congress was involved in some kind of tampering too, otherwise, why deport Haldeman, why arrest (though briefly) Hari Prasad? All they did was demonstrate the possibility of fraud, not as partisans but as responsible scientists concerned with the vulnerability of EVMs and the implications for democracy.
As for Ahannasmi – (not necessarily Hindutvavaadi, just naively status quo-ist and as we know from his previous entries here, pre-programmed to give knee-jerk responses contrary to anything argued on Kafila)
1) You state that Indian EVMs are technologically simpler, and need physical access to be tampered with, while European ones, being technologically superior, can be tampered with at a distance. The dubiousness of that argument apart, in fact Haldeman and Prasad cite the Netherlands study of EVMs used there, which too, required physical access. This access need not be “prolonged” as Ahannasmi blithely misreports – they say that anybody (including criminals doing it for money) with “brief access” to EVMs can do what’s necessary. They also add “Such attacks could be accomplished without the involvement of any local poll officials.” This puts paid to your statement that a political party not in power could not have carried out such acts – the BJP, to which you refer in that statement, has the will and pockets deep enough to pull this off, it did not need to be in power.
See Indian EVMs are Vulnerable to Fraud, where Prasad and his associates answer all doubts.
2) is simply a series of assertions about EVMs with VVPAT being “unlikely” to be less cost effective than paper ballots. No comparative study on costs has been conducted – when that is done, I will reassess my claim. For the moment I am justified in believing that using less technologically “advanced” means is cheaper than investing in more and more high technology, each time to correct a problem with the previous one – VVPAT to deal with the lack of checks on EVMs; something else to deal with some glitch that might emerge with VVPAT, and so on. The EC official cites cost as one of the factors for not introducing VVPAT, that’s enough reason to rethink EVMs. If cost is a factor in not introducing, despite Supreme Court orders, a necessary check to ensure that votes can be confirmed – a basic necessity, one would have thought, in any electoral process – not just in the elections that immediately followed that order, but even 8 months afterwards in Assembly elections, I rest my case.
3) “Apples and oranges” – it is you who are comparing incomparables. What USD 6000 is to Europe and the USA, Rs. 10,000 is to India, not literally of course, in terms of exchange rates, but in terms of value for money. What is expensive for them is unthinkable for us – what is expensive for us is the real question, and whether that expense ensures a better situation. Clearly, EVMs (plus other necessary technology) are both extremely expensive AND vulnerable to fraud.
As to the electoral rolls – you simply restate reports that we ourselves have cited here and earlier, quoting the DM, precisely those explanations are what I find dubious and your reasserting them does not address my argument.
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What is technologically dubious is your insinuation that technological simplicity somehow means less security. The Indian EVMs, being technologically simple, are not connected to any computer networks, as more technologically advanced ones may be. Being connected to outside networks, or having the ability to run outside code, is one of the main avenues of remote attacks on electronic systems. It is incredibly hard to remotely “attack” a simple 100 Rs battery run wristwatch, but comparatively mush easier to “attack” a 50000 Rs computer (as anyone who has ever had to deal with a computer virus knows).
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It is a terrific scenario. BJP under Amit Shah an allegedly known mafia boss can go to any extent. I am as sceptical as Nivedita.
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Bogus news. I am from Varanasi and I assure that victory of modi ji was 100% genuine and mr ak is a fraud and anti national element
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US still uses electronic voting systems, and the results are declared the same evening in most cases!!
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Where were the rigged EVMs you promised us Modistas? You cheated us, Niveditaji….
Regards
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Ravi – The USA has 52 states, of which at least 6 have shifted to paper ballots.
Majumdar (and others who came in with this kind of comment) – For the hundredth (and final) time:
1. Regardless of the results, EVMs are vulnerable to fraud and all over the Western world, countries are abandoning the experiment. But like the fuel guzzling SUV’s banned in Europe that are now flooding Indian roads, India has perfected the skill of absorbing every failed technology from the West and then defending the indefensible with increasingly idiotic arguments.
2. This time round, AAP was extra vigilant, a number of EVMs were identified as “faulty” (i.e. lighting up only for BJP) before the elections and withdrawn by the EC. During the elections too, such machines were identified by voters, but no action was taken on those. Re-polling was held in 2 stations yesterday because due to human and machine error, EVMs were recording votes faultily on election day.
In short, a huge degree of ground level alertness is required to ensure that EVMs are not rigged, and that genuine errors do not happen, especially because there is no way of checking whether your vote has gone to who you intended, without some kind of paper record. That paper record is too expensive to install.
EVMs must go. We must return, as so many countries in the countries you admire, have, to the paper ballot.
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– EVM’s can have shortcomings, could someone tell how many machines had issues? Is the % of faulty EVM’s acceptable within the margin of error?
– Can we see the forests which were saved by reducing the paper trail?
– Technology can have shortcoming’s but that doesn’t mean we should not try to improve it! That’s why we are here to improve and give better future to all ?
– How about we improve the EVM’s and export it to all the countries we admire?
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