EVM Tampering Allegations

If it’s election time, can accusations of EVM tampering be far behind, wonders Sreemoy Talukdar:

“It duly emerges during election time and depending on whether BJP wins or loses, either escalates or vaporises into thin air. For instance, EVMs were alright when Arvind Kejriwal's party swept Delhi in 2015.”

Questioning the EVM’s fits into the narrative of certain people that the Modi government is “destabilising institutions”, including the Election Commission (In India, unlike the US, the EC is an independent institution. So of course, the BJP must be all out to destroy it).

Selective stats are presented as “evidence”. In two Lok Sabha seats, 20.8 percent and 19.22 percent of all VVPAT machines had to be replaced. Is that a very high number? Absolutely. But during the Punjab assembly elections, the number was 35 percent in one constituency. A state that, in case you forgot, the Congress won.

The right question is why is the replacement rate so high at times for the newer VVPAT’s compared to the old EVM’s? Turns out there are innocent reasons:

1)      The old EVM’s are being phased out gradually and replaced with VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) machines. For transparency:

“(VVPAT) dispenses a slip with the symbol of the party for which a person has voted for. The slip drops in a box, but the voter cannot take it home. The voters see the slip for seven seconds, which would be an acknowledgement receipt for the party they voted for in the election.”

2)     The new VVPAT’s require re-training of the folks who set it up. In a country the size of India, is it at all surprising that trainings don’t get done perfectly in some cases or areas? The key point is that this is random.

Would it add credibility if I told you that security expert Bruce Schneier prescribes just this to help the US  go electronic in its elections?

“Touch-screen machines that print a paper ballot to drop in a ballot box can also work for voters with disabilities, as long as the ballot can be easily read and verified by the voter.”

Further, the EVM’s in India are not computer controlled, as mentioned by the EC. Which means they can’t be hacked as a group. One could argue that they can still be manipulated individually, unit by unit. But now see the logical conclusion to this line of thought:

“These will have to be done on such a huge scale to effect any real change on the ground that it is a logical and theoretical (leave alone practical) impossibility.”

If it were so easy, is it logical that the BJP fell short by a handful of seats in Karnataka? Schneier in fact recommends exactly this measure (EVM’s that are not computer controlled, not network enabled) as a step for the US to take!

Next, check out the “solution” proposed by the critics of the EVM’s in India: let’s go back to the paper ballots! Even though there is overwhelming data that EVMs led to a significant decline in electoral frauds and a decline in winning margins. Why don’t critics propose the sensible way: that all parties sit together and frame the rules before an election? After all, as Schneier says:

“Before the fact, when anyone can win and no one knows whose votes might be changed, it's easy to agree on strong security. But after the vote, someone is the presumptive winner -- and then everything changes. Half of the country wants the result to stand, and half wants it reversed. At that point, it's too late to agree on anything.”

Are the critics people who want to improve the system? Or just people who oppose Modi and the BJP?

At the end of the day, Talukdar sums it up perfectly:

“Democracy dies when ballot boxes are thrown into ponds, burnt or goons enter polling booths to stamp on papers. It doesn't die when a few machines malfunction. Let's not lose our perspective or sense of proportion.”