Third Front's candidate to take EVM matter to court STAFF WRITER 20:27 HRS IST Aurangabad, Oct 17 (PTI) Alleging manipulation of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), the Republican Left Democratic Committee (RLDC) candidate from Latur City Assembly Constituency said today that he will take the matter to court. http://www.ptinews.com/news/335856_Third-Front-s-candidate-to-take-EVM-matter-to-court Stop press: EVM fraud on Oct. 13, 2009: YouTube videoEVM fraud on Oct. 13, 2009: YouTube Video. EVM fraud in AP: video on YouTube. Thanks to Senthil Raja for the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F0UHrBWaHM Kalyanaraman EVM Tampering demonstrated in Arunachal Pradesh on Oct. 13, 2009
http://psenthilraja.wordpress.com/2009/05/17/tampering-evms-some-references/ On this Senthil Raja’s blog a comment has been posted by Aingku inviting reference to the URL http://friends-of-ziro.blogspot.com/2009/10/evm-tampering.html The demonstrated tampering on a 1min. 18 sec video, is simple and dramatic. The sequence in which the four candidates were listed on EC documents were modified on the EVM polling unit. BJP-TMC candidates sequence was switched; INC-NCP candidates sequence was switched. IntenT? Simply to register BJP votes to TMC and vice-versa and INC Votes to NCP and vice-versa. Did a similar switch take place during the Lok Sabha Elections in, say, select 100+ constituencies? If so, the EC should be made accountable in HC/SC to stop using the EVMs in future polls, until a proper audit trail is put in place and controls as in the case of ATMs of Banks. kalyanaraman FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2009 History of sorts was created on October 13, 2009 when repolling
was ordered in two polling stations at Ziro Assembly election. This is so
unexpected of the people of Ziro who are known to be honest and peace-loving. I
don't recall a single occasion when there was a repoll in Ziro-Hapoli
constituency. It is shameful. Cheating the machine. The case of tampering the Electronic Voting Machine. See Cheating or Mischief video at the website. Evidence     People are now talking about the 'brains' of the Apatanis. Well, I like to take that as a compliment. At the same time, I like to take that as a challenge - the challenge to show the right direction to young people with such 'brains', as they can either be used or misused. I dream that we use them. http://friends-of-ziro.blogspot.com/2009/10/evm-tampering.html
ECIL Engineers Test EVMs. 8.6% defective September 26th, 2009 SEPPA: A first level checking of the EVMs was conducted at Seppa Election office, by the highly skilled team of ECIL Engineers headed by S.C Sarkar from Hydrabad. Out of total 347 checked control unit 30 were found defective. At least 3 EVMs have been issued to the AROs of the various circle of the district so far- one each to ARO Seijosa, ARO Pijirang, ARO Bameng. Meanwhile a board has fixed Rs 200 per day for the porters. http://arunachalnews.com/ecil-engineers-test-evms.html EVM: Incompetence or Intent? Recap from yesterday (Sept. 16, 2009): The serious questions being asked include:
…If this is a Mistake, Why No Clarifications from the ECI? Read on: On the 6th of May Anupam and Prof Nalapat asked the ECI to clarify whether the spreadsheet that had “votes polled” for each candidate contained test data, actual votes polled or was it a wrong file? On 31st May, they made another formal request to the ECI specifically asking: Can you kindly indicate what the data in the CandidateAC downloaded from http://eci.nic.in/candidateinfo/frmcandidate.aspx file between the 6th and 15th is? Why is the Final votes polled data not uploaded till date at this location? When do you plan to upload it?” On the 7th of July 2009, they sent another, more detailed request for clarification. The response of ECI? Nothing…no comment at all. This is hardly reassuring and raises all kinds of questions. The most important - however outrageous it may sound - being: “Were the results of some Lok Sabha constituencies decided even before polling?” . As Anupam and Prof Nalapat noted in their article in Covert, there are not too many ways in which the information about “votes polled” in the spreadsheet on the ECI website could have changed BEFORE the results were actually announced. Realistically, this could have only happened if: 1. Someone had hacked the file. 2. The data from various EVMs had been uploaded to the private database, and this was used to create the public file. 3. Someone who had access to the private database had actually added the data. In their own words (emphasis mine): The first possibility is serious, as it implies that the databases hosted by the ECI are not secure and can be compromised. The second is a violation of the ECI’s rule that no counting was to begin till 16 May. It also constitutes a breach of security, as the EVMs were supposed to be in safe custody in a strong room of the DEO [district election officer]. The third would imply that the election results were being decided by whoever had access to the private database. If the results were to be read only from the EVMs, why was a coded spreadsheet prepared? How could this spreadsheet have the data on “votes polled”? Sceptics might say that the coded data containing information on the votes polled was test or dummy data. If so, why was this test or dummy data prepared? What was being tested? How was this test data generated? What were the results of the tests? Why was the data generated after the first three phases of polling, but before the fourth and fifth phases? Why was the data removed when there was no intention of loading real data into the file? Why was the dummy data coded? How do 108 winning candidates in the dummy data match the eventual winners? If you are still not convinced that something has gone wrong somewhere, this last bitwill probably clinch the argument: The various versions of the files downloaded from ECI website by Nalapat-Saraph on 6th, 7th and 11th May and the data were merged together along with the final results found on ECI site on June 2nd… 2. Candidates in every constituency were ranked as 1, 2 and 3 on
the basis of the votes seen in ECI excel sheets on 6th, 7th and 11th May. The Result? 1. Out of 543 constituencies, we find 106 winning positions (rank 1) matched for all four dates 2. 80 candidates matched for the rank 2 and 3. 59 for the rank 3… Basic probability theory suggests that such a coincidence is practically impossible…So what exactly was happening? Will we ever find out? I am not hopeful. Interestingly, buried within the avalanche of “breaking stories”, I found this snippet in the ET last week (emphasis mine): CPM leaders (Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury), accompanied by member secretariat V Srinivasa Rao and a technical expert Prabir Purkayastha, told the commission and technical experts present at the meeting that both hardware and software should be in public domain. Further, it said the chips manufactured by ECIL, BEL should be allowed for yearly random third-party inspections either by NIC or IITs. …They said these steps were necessary to ‘restore the ‘confidence’ in EVMs as there have been “reporting of errors in some machines and discrepancies in results”. A few weeks ago, during my last visit to Bharat, I met Anupam Saraph, Pune’s Chief Information Commissioner. I was introduced to Anupam via a chain triggered by Barun Mitra. I was keen to meet him, especially as his profile seemed to be very very intriguing. Anupam and I met on a rainy evening at ShivSagar restaurant (the best coffee for its price in Pune, I think!) and it was only around 10pm that I realised we had been talking for 3 hours! What Anupam told me that day was unbelievable…So I asked him to email me more information. Within two days, Anupam sent me a bunch of links - all pointing to something that had gone seriously wrong with either EVMs, data upload by the Election Commission - or both (and possibly something else) I hurriedly glanced through some of the links but decided to write about it on the blog only after I had gone through them in some detail. I am glad I did. Below is a story about EVMS and some unanswered questions…in the words of Anupam and Prof M Nalapat. Do read and think about it. Reading about what they uncovered made me feel very uneasy… I am now pretty sure that there is something that has gone wrong which we do not know about (yet). Most of you will not be surprised that Anupam was hounded when he went public with his fears…and no mainstream newspaper would touch their report or findings (sole exception: Mid-Day in Mumbai). If it was not for the internet, the story would have been censored and buried - never to see the light of the day. In view of this report, the concern raised by Vidhya on one of my previous posts - ought to be taken seriously (Like most other readers, I too was guilty of dismissing the concerns as mere conjecture and a bit of “sour grapes”. I may have been very wrong). Read on: . From Tracking the Elections 2009 (emphasis mine): Elections were held in 5 phases across India. The last phase of polling was completed on the 13th of May 2009. The counting of votes was to begin on the 16th of May 2009. The data of various candidates could be obtained from the Election Commission of India’s website. In order to track the elections and upload candidate and constituency information onto this wiki, we accessed this website and regularly downloaded the CandidateAC file from there. This spreadsheet had various columns containing information of all candidates including their political affiliations, age, address etc. There was also a column for “votes polled” and some “coding” called “DECODE(FINALISED,’YES’,'FINALISED’,)”. By virtue of the Election Rules no votes polled data/exit poll was to be available before the 16th of May 2009, least of all on the Election Commission of India Website. … The excel spreadsheets on candidate information for all India downloaded from the ECI website between the 6th and 15th of May had “coded” Candidate Names, Party Names and votes polled. Despite repeated queries the ECI has not clarified the meaning of this data. This has resulted in widespread speculation and raised serious questions about the the management and integrity of the democratic process. … The serious questions being asked include:
…
…
*** To be continued *** Rahul Mehta in Ahmedabad, has been raising similar issues for a long time now. Rahul is ex-IIT Delhi (Computer Science), founder of a political party/social movement and also contested from Gandhinagar this time. Checkout his EVM related effort here: PMK team tries its hand on EVMs in New Delhi By Express News Service CHENNAI: The PMK team led by its president G K Mani on Thursday
inspected the electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the presence of full
Commission comprising three Election Commissioners — Navin Chawla, V S Sampath
and S Y Qureshi — in New Delhi. However, the party has requested the Commission
to provide an opportunity on September 7 to prove their contention that the
evms could be tampered with. Voting machines: hackable, crackable, hijackable August 19, 5:15 PM · Garry Reed - Dallas Libertarian Examiner According to a Raw Story write-up from August 12, 2009, a party of profs and post grads from Cal – San Diego, Michigan, and Princeton universities hacked into an electronic voting machine and tainted the tall. They wanted to prove that criminals (their euphemism for Democrat or Republican Party operatives?) could start from scratch with no source codes or inside info, find a weakness, hack the security, and develop their own attack software. They proved that someone could easily break into the machines the night before an election and install hacking software that would alter the results on election day – all without detection. Their educational caper cost $100,000; a pittance compared to most politicians' political campaign purses. And yet the brainiac "experts" keep telling us voting machines are spoof-proof. If you don't believe that everything is hackable, crackable or hijackable, vote counters included, consider just a scant handful of recent reports: From Fox News, August 17, 2009 – Three hackers were indicted in an identity theft case that netted over 130 million credit and debit card numbers, along with other account info, stolen from three corporations, including the Dallas-based 7-Eleven convenience store chain. This easily eclipsed the previous American Indoor Hacking record... From InfoWorld, July 27, 2009 – Internet hosting company Network Solutions announced that someone dipped their illicit software snares into the company's digital pool and fished out half a million of their customer's credit card numbers. A letter sent to merchants who use their Ecommerce Hosting services admitted that somebody gained "unauthorized access to credit card account numbers, names and addresses of some of your customers." From Wired, July 31, 2009 - Pentagon hacker and 9/11 truther Gary McKinnon is set to be extradited back to the U.S. from England where he faces trial for hacking into 97 computers, including 53 Army, 26 Navy, 16 NASA, and 1 each Department of Defense and Air Force, between February 2001 and March 2002. He's also accused of crashing some systems, deleting critical files, shutting down the Army’s Military District of Washington network of over 2,000 computers for 24 hours, and in general causing over $700,000 in damages. McKinnon, whose hacker handle is "Solo," insists he was on a moral crusade in search of evidence of a UFO cover-up by the military. From LewRockwell.com, August 13, 2009 – In an article on the libertarian website, Paul Green tells the tale of a teenaged boy jailed for "swatting" his online-gaming adversaries. First, he tracked down a person's IP address. Next, he hacked his intended victim's internet provider for personal details. Then, spoofing (faking) his target's telephone number, he made an emergency call that resulted in armed SWAT teams invading his opponent's house. And for local readers... From Dallas Business Journal, September 19, 2008 – Ready for another hacking term? Reflashing. Dallas was a "hotbed of hackers" last year when TracFone filed 13 lawsuites against 50-plus Dallas-area businesses and individuals who bought the phones in bulk, reflashed them so they could be used on other wireless networks, and resold them for a profit. If every kind of giga-gadget and digital widget from military mainframes to remotely started keyless-entry security-encoded nose hair trimmers can be hacked, is it any wonder that libertarians have long looked askance not only at electronic voting machines but at the very concept of voting itself? Some still check a box for the perceived "lesser of two evils" while others pull nothing but the Libertarian lever. But why bother when your choice of Charlie can be changed to Charlene without you ever knowing it? The state mandating more electronic voting machines just gives more props to libertarians who refuse to vote at all on the principle that voting only serves to encourage the out-of-wedlock reprobates who run for public power. Working within the system means getting grifted by the system. So figure it out for yourself: 1. It has long been proved by constant hacks and virus attacks that any good geek with off-the-shelf gear is light years ahead of the government-academic-corporate rocket scientist security experts, including the colossal computer corporations who stand to make millions by selling vulnerable voting devices to the politicos. 2. Every electronic voting machine in the nation is under the control of some government entity at some level. 3. Trust them like you trust the dope-smoking mope next door who wants to diddle your daughter. A boycott to stem ‘vote for money’ By Anbumani Ramadoss When the All
India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) announced their boycott of the
assembly by-elections in Tamil Nadu, they were spurred by memories of the
recent parliamentary elections. The elections in Tamil Nadu witnessed the gross
misuse of science — electronic voting machines (EVMs) were manipulated and
systematic rigging was resorted to by officials showcasing blatant use of money
power to the advantage of the ruling party, handing them stupendous victory on
a silver platter, defying all principles of democracy, ethics and logic. The
entire election drama was staged with such shocking impunity and lack of
compunction that the opposition parties and the conscientious public watched
with benumbing horror. The spectacle of the democratic process crumbled down
like a pack of cards. Poll panel allows petitioners to show EVM’s tamperbilityIans August 17th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Election Commission Monday met petitioners who have filed cases in courts across the country challenging the efficacy of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and agreed to offer machines so they could demonstrate their claims of tamperability. We met the Election Commission and demanded it offer us EVMs to demonstrate that these can be tampered with. The commission has agreed and will tell us tomorrow (Tuesday) of the time to give this demonstration,” Hari Prasad, managing director of Net India, a Hyderabad based software company, told IANS after the meeting. Two engineers of Net India are also petitioners in this case. All three Election Commissioners were present along with their expert committee at the meeting with the delegation which included observers from political parties and technical experts. Prasad said he has asked for 20 EVMs that he will pick randomly from different booths to demonstrate that these can be tampered with. The commission has reiterated several times that the machines were tamper-proof. The first attack against the EVMs came from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani. Later, other political leaders also voiced their concerns about the reliability of the EVMs used during the April-May Lok Sabha polls. Since many cases were filed on the matter in various courts, the commission invited those who had approached the courts and political parties to its headquarters in New Delhi to discuss the issue. http://blog.taragana.com/n/poll-panel-allows-petitioners-to-show-evms-tamperbility-141837/ AIADMK, SP leaders meet EC to prove EVM tamperingPTI 17 August 2009, 08:16pm IST NEW
DELHI: A delegation comprising leader of two political parties
and technical experts today met Election Commission officials and discussed
with them the possibility of tampering of EVMs.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/india/AIADMK-SP-leaders-meet-EC-to-prove-EVM-tampering-/articleshow/4903491.cmsOldest PSU to develop first biometric EVMManeesh Chhibber Posted online: Monday , Aug 17, 2009 at 0338 hrs New Delhi : The country’s oldest public sector undertaking (PSU) is all set to play a major role in ushering in a new era in the way elections are conducted in the country. Bangalore-based ITI Limited is on the verge of developing what could be the country’s first biometric electronic voting machine (EVM). With concerns over whether the EVMs that the Election Commission of India (EC) presses into service during elections can be hacked, the biometric EVMs could effectively end all debate about the fairness of the electoral process. In October last, the then Chief Election Commissioner, N Gopalaswami, had said that the EC was considering introduction of biometric EVMs. Last week, the EC held a meeting with Nandan Nilekani, recently-appointed chief of the UID project, where the issue of biometric EVMs was also discussed. The biometric EVMs, which the ITI Ltd is developing, would identify voters by their fingerprints, thereby putting an end to all bogus voting and impersonation. When contacted, Lt Col A M Uniyal (retd), General Manager (R&D), ITI Ltd, confirmed that the company was working on the new type of EVMs. “Beyond that I can’t tell you anything,” he said. A source in the EC said with the Government of India having already set up an authority to provide unique identity cards to the citizens, the problem of a database of biometric prints of the voters would automatically be solved. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Oldest-PSU-to-develop-first-biometric-EVM/502868 EVM hacking: EC accountable under cyber law: IT Act 2000I have collated and summarised arguments demonstrating EVM hacking and the imperative of subjecting EC to a forensic audit by an independent agency under the directions of the Supreme Court. The splendid contributions made by Prof. J Krishnayya, Dr. Anupam Saraph, Prof. MD Nalapat, Sri Rajeev Srinivasan, Prof. Sohan Prabhakar Modak, Sri Senthi Raja are gratefully acknowledged. Freedom we have earned has to be defended resolutely. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. EC like caesar's wife should be above suspicion. Now, EC is tainted as it has entered the complex cyber world, has to justify its constitutional status before the peoples' court and explain fully the measures taken to guard against cyber frauds in the wireless technology age exemplified by a chip the size of a pencil head can transmit and receive messages when buttoned on to a device like the EVM.
Our ancestors of the 10th century (919 CE) seem to have conducted elections -- with secret ballots using pots -- much more efficiently as recorded in the Uttaramerur (near Kanchipuram) inscription of King Parantaka chola . This was mentioned during the Constituent Assembly debates by T. Prakasam (who was CM of Madras Presidency) while referring to the democratic traditions of our nation. http://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/debates/debates.htm(Constituent Assembly Debates) This inscription which refers to adult suffrage and secret ballot, was cited during Constituent Assembly deliberations for drafting the Constitution of independent Bharat. “Shri T. Prakasam (Madras: General): The Honourable Mr. Madhava Rau said that the ballot box and ballot paper were not known to our ancestors. I would like to point out to him, Sir, that the ballot box and the ballet papers were described in an inscription on the walls of a temple in the villages of Uttaramerur, twenty miles from Conjeevaram (Kanchipuram). Every detail is given there. The ballot box was a pot with the mouth tied and placed on the ground with a hole made atthe bottom and the ballot paper was the kadjan leaf and adult franchise was exercised. The election took place not only for that village but for the whole of India. This was just a thousand years ago. It is not known to my honourable Friend and that is why he made such a wrong statement – a grievously wrong statement and I want to correct it.” http://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/debates/vol7p5b.htmhttp://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/debates/vol4p8.htm http://www.thehindu.com/fr/2008/07/11/stories/2008071151250300.htm Constitution 1000 years ago namaskaram. kalyanaraman EC accountable under cyber law: IT Act 2000 How can an accused become a judge? All parties have expressed concerns about functioning of EVMs (Ghulam Nabi Azad about Orissa polls, Advani about Lok Sabha polls, PMK/MDMK in Tamil Nadu etc.) EC is going through a make-believe, non-transparent exercise. How can the accused become a judge? EC has not explained who manufactures the chips in the EVMs The manufactures of the CHIPs are still not revealed by the EC, and most probably the manufacturer of the chip would be a foreign company. Again, this is another national security issue, where we mortgage our credibility of our election process to a foreign company. Ultimately we never inspect the foreign company premises too. There are also reports that ECIL/BEL have outsourced the making of the EVMs to private parties thus introducing another trojan horse. EC has to confirm the situation. Introduction of timer device in EVMs violates secrecy of ballot The latest EVMs record the time of each vote. This violates the fundamental principle of secret voting. When the polling booth agent, notes down the time a particular voter had voted, he will be able to find which party he voted for, if he has access to EVM vote logs. This is a violation of constitutional rights, which can invalidate the last loksabha election itself, since about 16% of EVMs had time details. Use of two types of machines -- one with timer (introduced in Jan. 2009 first in Delhi Assembly polls) and another without timer device. EVMs with timer devices are said to be about 2 lakh in number (out of a total of about13 lakh EVMs). Thus in 16% of the constituencies or about 80 Lok Sabha constituencies the timerdevice EVMs were used rendering them to internet frauds because timer device makes the device non-local and directly amenable to internet crime. There is a good possibility that the 80 constituencies selected for manipulation were in Tamilnadu, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, UP and Delhi. EC is accountable to provide info. on how the timer-device EVMs were distributed and how they were certified by manufacturers , audited by Since the early days of electronic devices such as Read Only Memory (ROM) chips, there have been dramatic advances including wireless technologies. UC SanDiego Prof writes about having been able to reverse engineer the software of The first question is how will we know, if a chip contains wireless feature or not? It is impossible to find the architecture of the chip, after it is manufactured. This wireless feature can be be made passive, so that it gets activated only upon receiving a specific signal in a specific frequency. A simple analogy is that, our mobile phone rings only if the call is intended for it.. All the GSM waves are available to the mobile phone, but it activates only when a particular signal (corresponding to its mobile number or set code) is detected. IT rejects all other waves, even though it can read those. In a similar case, the wireless feature will remain passive, unless activated by the known person. And this can be done, through satellite from any part of the world. Or it can be done at a distance of 200 - 300 metres outside the polling booth.. The possibility is wide here. Failure to audit the design integrity of EVM's and embedded software Beep sound can NEVER be a confirmation of the vote: The EC claims that when a voter presses the particular party's button, there will be a beep sound to confirm his vote. But in practical perspective, a beep sound confirms only the pressing of the button, but it does not confirm whether the vote has been delivered to the particular party. This is just like giving our vote to a third person, who in turns puts in to ballot box. We never know if that third person puts our vote correctly or he changes it and puts a different vote or he may not even deliver the vote itself. So, direct and secret voting itself is violated, which is available in the ballot paper, where we know which party symbol we are marking, and we ourselves ensure the voting by directly putting the paper in the ballot box ourselves. - Closed source proprietary design- If it is a mere calculator and completely secure, why the secrecy about its design and software, why not allow use of any EVM's that confirm to a standard? We do not restrict to using HP calculators and ban the use of any other calculator for number crunching. An extraordinary statement was made by EC that from now on ECIL/BEL (makers of EVMs) will be asked to certify the EVMs supplied by them. It is amazing that such certification and audit by EC did not occur for the 13 lakhs + EVMs in use now and for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Trojan Code: Secret Trojan code embedded right at the manufacturing stage. This trojan can be activated, by combination of special keys known only to secret group of people. This trojan need not know the candidate or his serial number or his party symbol. What it needs is to know the exact button, to which the benefeciary party belongs to, so that it can either simulate that button press, or transfer votes from other buttons to the beneficiary party's button code. This point is very important, because the Indiresan committee report claims that the candidate serial number is not known till two weeks of commencement of election. This is a false claim, because, candidate serial number is only for human reference, and all the internal workings are based on machine codes. Even if cadidate serial number claim is to be accepted, there should be a mechanism to feed or map the button to the serial number, and that can be done only by humans.. who are they? Absence of standards for EVM data storage and retrieval - There are no standards and procedures for data-storage, data-retrieval, archiving, data-transfer, data-verification. In fact the BEL and ECIL machines are not even compatible when it comes to obtaining, storing retrieving, archiving or transferring data. What is the standard? Why are there no third party designs? Who are the OEMs? This is like NTSC and PAL- only the manufacturers benefit.
Absence of EVM audit procedures - Coded "results" were available on the ECI website in the versions of the spreadsheet CandidateAC.xls downloaded between the 6th and 11th of May. They contained "results" for all but 47 of the 8071 candidate. If EVM’s were secure with DEO/district collectors, and elections were not even held in many constituencies, how was did the ECI have this data? EC in violation of Supreme Court order of 19 Jan. 2009
ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA Nirvachan Sadan, Ashoka Road, New Delhi – 110 001 No. ECI/PN/ 23 /2009 Dated : 14th April, 2009 PRESS NOTE Subject : Prohibition on Publication and Dissemination of Results of Opinion polls/Exit polls. In pursuance of the Order passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court on 19-01-2009, in writ petition ( C) No. 207 of 2004, the Election Commission issued Guidelines, on 17th February, 09, to be followed in the matter of publication/dissemination of results of opinion polls and exit polls in connection with the current elections to the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies. As per the guidelines, result of opinion/exit polls carried out at any time, cannot be published, publicized or disseminated in any manner, during the period starting from 48 hours before the hour fixed for conclusion of poll in the first phase of election and till the conclusion of poll in the last phase of election. The period referred to in the guidelines starts from 3 PM today, the 14th April, 09 (as the hour fixed for conclusion of poll in some of the constituencies in the first phase of election on 16.4.09 is 3 PM ), and will continue till the conclusion of poll in the last ( the fifth) phase of election. (K.F.WILFRED) SECRETARY Use of Genesys software by EC to consolidate vote counts Counting of votes using Genesys software EC has not publicized, NOR audited the flow of information after the EVMs have been used for the polls. There are so many places along the route (not to mention the idea of using E-mails to collect vote totals!) where errors can creep in. (In fact, the Genesys programme mentioned by EC to Anupam and Nalapat has NOT been publicised. Has it been checked out by the technical group led by Indiresan? - If this data is generated as test/dummy data by "Genesys" software that collects and transfers data from districts to the ECI then: Votes polled by 108 winners in 2009 Lok Sabha polls tally with May 6 spreadsheet data of EC Nalapat's discovery of EC working with spreadsheets on May 6 when the final count and results were due only on May 10. Prof. SP Modak has found that 108 constituency results match with the numbers used in the spreadsheets. This is a serious issue requiring CBI inquiry. EC cannot be allowed to brush this under the carpet; this is comparable to a cyber crime of fraudulent of use of ATMs of Banks. An external agency should audit the use of Gensys software for gathering info. On counted votes from the state Election Commission officials. * Why do 108 winners tally with winners as per this data? EC has not replied to the notes sent by Anupam and Nalapat * Why has the ECI not replied to the mails and minutes of the meeting with ECI sent to them by Dr Anupam Saraph and Prof Madhav Nalapat? EC contravenes Cyberlaws in India SC should direct that EC be made accountable under the Information Technology Act 2000 since EC is using a computer/computer network/computer resource/computer system as defined in the Act. EVMs are computers/computer networks/computer resource/computer system under the definitions included in The Information Technology Act, 2000 (No. 21 Of 2000)Of India http://www.legalserviceindia.com/cyber/itact.html (For the full text of the Act) Amendments have also been made to the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860) to recognize electronic records and to the Indian Evidence Act 1872 (1 of 1872) and Reserve Bank of India act 1934 (2 of 1934). In the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, in section 58, in sub-section (2), after clause (p), the following clause shall be inserted, namely:- "(pp) the regulation of fund transfer through electronic means between the banks or between the banks and other financial institutions referred to in clause (c) of section 45-1, including the laying down of the conditions subject to which banks and other financial institutions shall participate in such fund transfers, the manner of such fund transfers and the rights and obligations of the participants in such fund transfers;". This is an Act to provide legal recognition for transactions carried out by means of electronic data interchange and other means of electronic communication, commonly referred to as "electronic commerce", which involve the use of alternatives to paper-based methods of communication and storage of information, to facilitate electronic filing of documents with the Government agencies and further to amend the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, the Bankers' Books Evidence Act, 1891 and the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. 1 (2) It shall extend to the whole of India and, save as otherwise provided in this Act, it applies also to any offence or contravention thereunder committed outside India by any person. 2 ) "computer" means any electronic magnetic, optical or other high-speed data processing device or system which performs logical, arithmetic, and memory functions by manipulations of electronic, magnetic or optical impulses, and includes all input, output, processing, storage, computer software, or communication facilities which are connected or related to the computer in a computer system or computer network; (j) "computer network" means the interconnection of one or more computers through— (i) the use of satellite, microwave, terrestrial line or other communication media; and (ii) terminals or a complex consisting of two or more interconnected computers whether or not the interconnection is continuously maintained; (k) "computer resource" means computer, computer system, computer network, data,computer data base or software; (l) "computer system" means a device or collection of devices, including input and output support devices and excluding calculators which are not programmable and capable of being used in conjunction with external files, which contain computer programmes, electronic instructions, input data and output data, that performs logic, arithmetic, data storage and retrieval, communication control and other functions; The act defines in Section 2 (ze) a "secure system" means computer hardware, software, and procedure that- (a) are reasonably secure from unauthorised access and misuse; Sections 65 and 66 of the IT Act 2000 prescribe penalties for tampering/hacking: 65. Tampering with computer source documents. Explanation.- For the purposes of this section, "computer source code" means the listing of programmes, computer commands, design and layout and programme analysis of computer resource in any form. 66. Hacking with computer system. (1) Whoever with the intent to cause or knowing that he is likely to cause wrongful loss or damage to the public or any person destroys or deletes or alters any information residing in a computer resource or diminishes its value or utility or affects it injuriously by any means, commits hack: (2) Whoever commits hacking shall be punished with imprisonment up to three years, or with fine which may extend upto two lakh rupees, or with both. Procedures governing ATMs which require printout of transaction as an audit trail for the customer should be followed in EVM operations. Just as an ATM produces a receipt, EVM should produce a receipt which can be deposited in a separate box for verification in cases of EVM malfunction/complaints. Secrecy of the ballot will not be vitiated. The voter is free to inform others of how he voted; there is no law prohibiting this freedom. He should also get a copy of the EVM receipt. Even as of now, since an EVM can accommodate only 3000 votes, secrecy of ballot has already been violated; it will be possible to know which ward voters voted for which candidates. A note on cyberlaws is provided in a separate document. Just as a Bank is accountable for preventing potential ATM frauds, EC will have to be answerable to the possibility of crimes committed on EVMs which are computing devices. RBI regulates the operation of the ATMs of banks. Similar regulatory mechanism is needed for EVMs operated by EC. Elections are high-stake democratic exercises. Why EVM should be declared unconstitutional by SC Voter cannot be expected to be able to understand the systems audit requirements for complex computing devices. Elections as a public exercise should be simple and intelligible to the voter. This is the 'simplicity' criterion on which German Supreme Court declared use of EVMs unconstitutional. Nontranparency of EC about vote counting EC is not transparent about the election counting procedure. See also the episode about EC admitting the use of Genesys Software to maintain spreadsheets of election results. This software had been used to keep the count on May 6 itself even before the final counting date of May 16 in serious violation of all canons of propriety. EC has promised to explain this issue to Anupam Saraph and Nalapat. Response from EC awaited. Dangers of erroneous counting or manipulated counting or tally of votes The possibility of changing the values at the last minute: All the votes are electronically stored, most probably in a flash memory. (Similar to pen drive). This memory should be rewritable, otherwise, the votes cannot be entered in this memory. The EC claims only the controlling unit is one time writable. But not the storage chip. When there is a mechanism to read the total number of votes, cant there be a secret mechanism to alter the reading? In the case of Chidambaram episode, the EVMs seem to have been modified somewhere in the middle. To give an idea on how to change the values, we can refer to digital FM radios available now, where the frequency can be either incremented or decremented, just using two buttons. The focus on Election Counting Machine: EVM's are NOT manually counted.. rather, they are connected to a counting machine, which reads the bulk of EVM machines. Why can’t the counting machine be hacked? Since the counting machine gives a consolidated total, it would be possible to change values through the counting machine, since what it displays tends to be the final result. Surely, EC has to provide a lot of answers instead of issuing Press Notes declaring that EVMs are tamper-proof. No one buy this declaration in this electronic, wireless age. Else, there would have been no need for an IT Act 2000 as a cyberlaw of India. PMK to demonstrate its claim on EVMs tampering before EC Published by: Noor Khan Published: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 at 19:38 IST Chennai, Aug 12 The Election Commission and the PMK today reached an understanding before the Madras High Court under which the party would demonstrate to EC on August 27 how the EVMs could be "manipulated" as claimed by it. A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice H L Gokhale and Justice D Murugasen recorded the submission by counsels for EC and PMK on the understanding to hold the demonstration at the commission's office premises in New Delhi. "The petitioner is expected to remain present and point out whatever defects he finds in the Electronic Voting Machines," the judges said. PMK President G K Mani had moved the court for a direction to the EC to afford an opportunity to experts identified by the party to demonstrate on how EVMs could be "manipulated". The party had also sought an interim injunction, restraining the EC from using EVMs in the August 18 by-elections to five assembly seats in Tamil Nadu. PMK, which drew a blank in the May Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu despite contesting seven seats, had claimed that according to experts EVMs could be tampered with so that votes polled in favour of one candidate could be registered in the name of another. http://www.samaylive.com/news/pmk-to-demonstrate-its-claim-on-evms-tampering-before-ec/646305.html PMK to show Election Commission how EVMs can be tampered Ians August 12th, 2009 CHENNAI - The Madras High Court Wednesday permitted political party PMK to demonstrate to election commission officials how the electronic voting machine (EVM) can be manipulated. Hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by PMK’s G.K. Mani, a division bench of the high court asked the PMK leader to show to the election commission on Aug 27 how the EVMs could be manipulated. In his petition, Mani had said several software experts had opined that the EVMs could be manipulated. Alleging the EVMs were tampered with in the recent Lok Sabha elections, he prayed to the court to order setting up of a committee comprising software experts from the government and private sector to look into the issue. He sought the court’s permission to let his party demonstrate to the election commission how the EVMs could be tampered with. http://blog.taragana.com/n/pmk-to-show-election-commission-how-evms-can-be-tampered-137519/
Expert: EC silent on EVM tampering EVMs: “doubters must present their case before poll panel” Special Correspondent (The Hindu, Aug. 11, 20090) CHENNAI: Former Chief Election Commissioner T.S. Krishnamoorthy has advised those having doubts on the infallibility of electronic voting machines to present their case before the Election Commission and stop “misleading people.” Mr. Krishnamoorthy, who was among those invited to witness a demonstration on how EVMs could be tampered with, initially began to walk out as the organisers of the function, along with leaders of some Opposition parties began casting aspersions on the conduct of the Election Commission. He relented to watch the demonstration after the organisers cut short their speeches and began the demonstration. The event, ‘Reliability of EVMs and its demonstration,’ was organised by the Advocates Forum for Social Justice and a national forum for transparency and accountability in Indian elections. In the demonstration, the organisers, using a Net-India made EVM (not an ECI EVM – the organisers said they had requested the EC for a few EVMs, which was turned down) initially showed how there was no problem during the mock poll. They said that after the mock poll the district-level officials certified that the EVMs were in working order. They later conducted a ‘poll’ to prove how if a software programme is written into the EVM chip, it will show more votes for the candidate who managed to manipulate the machine. Mr. Krishnamoorthy pointed out to the audience, comprising mostly members of Opposition parties, that only a technically qualified person could assess if a chip was burnt and whether there was a ‘Trojan’ programme in it. But, given the fact that there were as many as six safeguards in the machine, the “question of a Trojan does not arise.” Detailing the poll process, Mr. Krishnamoorthy said that for every election, EVMs were rotated from State to State. Conceding that there could be some technical apprehensions for the organisers which needed clarification, Mr. Krishnamoorthy said it was “unfair” to make allegations that the “EVMs could be tutored.” http://www.hindu.com/2009/08/11/stories/2009081160700700.htm EVM: Hacking demo Public release date: 10-Aug-2009
Video at http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/15858.php?from=142265 Caption: Computer scientists led by Hovav Shacham, a UC San Diego professor, hacked an electronic voting machine and stole votes using a malicious programming approach that had not been invented when the voting machine was designed. The computer scientists employed "return-oriented programming" to force a Sequoia AVC Advantage electronic voting machine to turn against itself and steal votes. Computer scientists take over electronic voting machine with new programming technique Voting machines must remain secure throughout their entire service lifetime, and this study demonstrates how a relatively new programming technique can be used to take control of a voting machine that was designed to resist takeover Computer scientists demonstrated that criminals could hack an electronic voting machine and steal votes using a malicious programming approach that had not been invented when the voting machine was designed. The team of scientists from University of California, San Diego, the University of Michigan, and Princeton University employed “return-oriented programming” to force a Sequoia AVC Advantage electronic voting machine to turn against itself and steal votes. “Voting machines must remain secure throughout their entire service lifetime, and this study demonstrates how a relatively new programming technique can be used to take control of a voting machine that was designed to resist takeover, but that did not anticipate this new kind of malicious programming,” said Hovav Shacham, a professor of computer science at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering and an author on the new study presented on August 10, 2009 at the 2009 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop / Workshop on Trustworthy Elections (EVT/WOTE 2009), the premier academic forum for voting security research. In 2007, Shacham first described return-oriented programming, which is a powerful systems security exploit that generates malicious behavior by combining short snippets of benign code already present in the system. The new study demonstrates that return-oriented programming can be used to execute vote-stealing computations by taking control of a voting machine designed to prevent code injection. Shacham and UC San Diego computer science Ph.D. student Stephen Checkoway collaborated with researchers from Princeton University and the University of Michigan on this project. “With this work, we hope to encourage further public dialog regarding what voting technologies can best ensure secure elections and what stop gap measures should be adopted if less than optimal systems are still in use,” said J. Alex Halderman, an electrical engineering and computer science professor at the University of Michigan. The computer scientists had no access to the machine’s source code—or any other proprietary information—when designing the demonstration attack. By using just the information that would be available to anyone who bought or stole a voting machine, the researchers addressed a common criticism made against voting security researchers: that they enjoy unrealistic access to the systems they study. “Based on our understanding of security and computer technology, it looks like paper-based elections are the way to go. Probably the best approach would involve fast optical scanners reading paper ballots. These kinds of paper-based systems are amenable to statistical audits, which is something the election security research community is shifting to,” said Shacham. “You can actually run a modern and efficient election on paper that does not look like the Florida 2000 Presidential election,” said Shacham. “If you are using electronic voting machines, you need to have a separate paper record at the very least.” Last year, Shacham, Halderman and others authored a paper entitled “You Go to Elections with the Voting System You have: Stop-Gap Mitigations for Deployed Voting Systems” that was presented at the 2008 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop.”http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~hovav/papers/hrsw08.html “This research shows that voting machines must be secure even against attacks that were not yet invented when the machines were designed and sold. Preventing not-yet-discovered attacks requires an extraordinary level of security engineering, or the use of safeguards such as voter-verified paper ballots,” said Edward Felten, an author on the new study; Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy; and Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Return-Oriented Programming Demonstrates Voting Machine Vulnerabilities To take over the voting machine, the computer scientists found a flaw in its software that could be exploited with return-oriented programming. But before they could find a flaw in the software, they had to reverse engineer the machine’s software and its hardware—without the benefit of source code. Princeton University computer scientists affiliated with the Center for Information Technology Policy began by reverse engineering the hardware of a decommissioned Sequoia AVC Advantage electronic voting machine, purchased legally through a government auction. J. Alex Halderman—an electrical engineering and computer science professor at the University of Michigan (who recently finished his Ph.D. in computer science at Princeton) and Ariel Feldman—a Princeton University computer science Ph.D. student, reverse-engineered the hardware and documented its behavior. It soon became clear to the researchers that the voting machine had been designed to reject any injected code that might be used to take over the machine. When they learned of Shacham’s return-oriented programming approach, the UC San Diego computer scientists were invited to take over the project. Stephen Checkoway, the computer science Ph.D. student at UC San Diego, did the bulk of the reverse engineering of the voting machine’s software. He deciphered the software by reading the machine’s read-only memory. Simultaneously, Checkoway extended return-oriented programming to the voting machine’s processor architecture, the Z80. Once Checkoway and Shacham found the flaw in the voting machine’s software—a search which took some time—they were ready to use return-oriented programming to expose the machine’s vulnerabilities and steal votes. The computer scientists crafted a demonstration attack using return-oriented programming that successfully took control of the reverse engineered software and hardware and changed vote totals. Next, Shacham and Checkoway flew to Princeton and proved that their demonstration attack worked on the actual voting machine, and not just the simulated version that the computer scientists built. The computer scientists showed that an attacker would need just a few minutes of access to the machine the night before the election in order to take it over and steal votes the following day. The attacker introduces the demonstration attack into the machine through a cartridge with maliciously constructed contents that is inserted into an unused port in the machine. The attacker navigates the machine’s menus to trigger the vulnerability the researchers found. Now, the malicious software controls the machine. The attacker can, at this point, remove the cartridge, turn the machine’s power switch to the “off” position, and leave. Everything appears normal, but the attacker’s software is silently at work. When poll workers enter in the morning, they normally turn this type of voting machine on. At this point, the exploit would make the machine appear to turn back on, even though it was never actually turned off. “We overwrote the computer’s memory and state so it does what we want it to do, but if you shut off the machine and reboot from ROM, the exploit is gone and the machine returns to its original behavior,” explained Checkoway. The computer scientists tested a machine that is very similar to machines that are used today in New Jersey and Louisiana. These New Jersey and Louisiana machines may have corrected the specific vulnerabilities the computer scientists exploited, but they have the same architectural limitations. The researchers highlight the possibility that current voting machines will be vulnerable to return-oriented programming attacks similar to the attack demonstrated in this study. “This work shows how difficult it is to design voting machines that will remain secure over time. It’s impossible to anticipate what new kinds of attacks will be discovered in the future,” said Halderman. ### Watch a four minute video interview with Hovav Shacham, professor of computer science at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering at:http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_video/play.sfe?id=40 orhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me3oMlAZ4Qo County by county information on voting machines is available, via Verified Voting.org at:http://www.verifiedvoting.org/verifier/searched.php?model%5B%5D=AVC+Advantage&rowspp=20000 This return-oriented programming development comes less than one year after a pair of UC San Diego computer science graduate students both extended return-oriented programming to RISC computer architectures and automated much of the necessary low level programming. http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_releases/release.sfe?id=788 “Can DREs Provide Everlasting Security? The Case of Return-Oriented Programming and the AVC Advantage” by Stephen Checkoway,University of California, San Diego; Ariel J. Feldman, Princeton University; Brian Kantor, University of California, San Diego; J. Alex Halderman, University of Michigan; Edward W. Felten, Princeton University; Hovav Shacham, University of California, San Diego. The computer scientists presented this work on August 10, 2009 at the 2009 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop / Workshop on Trustworthy Elections (EVT/WOTE 2009), the premier academic forum for voting security research. Related publications: J.A. Halderman, E. Rescorla, H. Shacham, and D.
Wagner. “You Go to Elections with the Voting System You Have: Stop-Gap
Mitigations for Deployed Voting Systems.” In D. Dill and T. Kohno, eds.,
Proceedings of EVT 2008. USENIX/ACCURATE, July 2008. R. Roemer, E. Buchanan, H. Shacham, and S. Savage.
“Return-Oriented Programming: Systems, Languages, and Applications.” 2009. In
review. E. Buchanan, R. Roemer, H. Shacham, and S. Savage.
“When Good Instructions Go Bad: Generalizing Return-Oriented Programming to
RISC.” In P. Syverson and S. Jha, eds., Proceedings of CCS 2008, pages 27–38.
ACM Press, Oct. 2008. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-08/uoc--csh080609.php# The ECI said that tests are conducted on the "Gensys" software that transmits the results to the website. These tests are to ensure that the candidate name and results columns match. They also sad all such tests are clearly labeled as tests on the website. They were unable to explain why the data available on the 6th of May through the 15th of May on the ECI website was not labeled test, was changing, was coded, did not display the candidate name and why the results were not uploaded on to the spreadsheet. They agreed that they would send a written communication about this serious issue. Meeting with the ECI
On the 7th of August 2009, at the request of Kirit Somayia, Dr Anupam Saraph visited the ECI along with several technology experts. Security Expert Vijay Mukhi pointed out that the ECI should change its language that EVM's cannot be hacked as there is no technology that is hack proof. He also pointed out several holes in the EVM that can be used to compromise an EVM. Kirit Somayia highlighted the need to keep making improvements in the election process by seeking open and inclusive dialog with all stake-holders. He also highlighted the lack of audit of the votes or voters, as would exist in the finance profession. He asked the ECI to immediately switch to paper trail to EVMs. Here is the summary of the points Dr Anupam Saraph raised with the ECI: Trust in EVMs: When people transact on an ATM and trust the machine in the wall with their hard earned money, the machine does NOT require any "observers", micro-observers", "agents of the bank", "agents of the Reserve Bank of India", "Representatives of the Account holder" etc. along with seals fixed on the machine by various persons, countersigned by others on specially printed paper from Nasik to build trust. Unfortunately, as indicated by the ECI during the meeting itself, the EVM has to be viewed in its totality, including the administrative checks and balances and the various processes. These include a paraphernelia of observers, micro-observers, polling agents, returning officers, counting agents etc. as well as several seals on paper printed at the government press in Nasik to ensure and create the perception of trust. The transaction slip that the ATM generates, the ability to check the balance anytime on the ATM or on a counter in the bank- even update a "passbook"- creates trust. The EVMs, however leave no such transaction trail and ability to build trust. They are purely faith based on the entire machinery and it is painful that the ECI is not giving adequate reasons to even build the faith in the machinery. The banking system also has a statutory Audit by a third party, not the manufacturer of the ATM or the bank. The EVM has no transaction trail, no audit and cannot be checked by anyone without the direction of the court. How many times had any audit been undertaken and where, by whom? Which of the "upgrade" features of EVMs were used on a regular basis and what were the results? Why instead was there no focus on simplifying the EVM to make it more trustable?
Consolidating databases: The election commission is required to track information on voters, constituencies, candidates, votes etc. This information is collected, stored and maintained in various databases of the ECI in multiple formats, multiple copies and multiple locations. There is no way to tell the authentic one. A query to one may generate a different answer from the other. There needs to be a broader open and inclusivetechnology reform agenda beyond the EVMs.
Tests and dummy data: The ECI must make public any tests, their schedule, the nature of such tests, the data used for such tests, the results obtained from such tests and the names of the persons and organizations responsible for such tests. Kirit Somayia asked the ECI to particularly comment on the queries raised by Prof Madhav Nalapat and Dr Anupam Saraph about the data available from the 6th of May.
The ECI agreed that the simplification of the EVM was needed- the need for such an elaborate machinery should be done away with. They agreed to compile the list of audits undertaken, if any, and make them available. While conceding that none of the upgrade features had been used to generate reports, they said they were there in-case of direction by the court. The ECI agreed that it had need to consolidate the databases and ensure that the system would be less error prone. They agreed to create a "technology reform agenda" beyond the EVMs. The ECI said that tests are conducted on the "Gensys" software that transmits the results to the website. These tests are to ensure that the candidate name and results columns match. They also sad all such tests are clearly labeled as tests on the website. They were unable to explain why the data available on the 6th of May through the 15th of May on the ECI website was not labeled test, was changing, was coded, did not display the candidate name and why the results were not uploaded on to the spreadsheet. They agreed that they would send a written communication about this serious issue. The ECI conceded to the existence of holes, "easter eggs" in the software and the absence of any process other than "black-box" testing to confirm the source code on EVMs and rationalized saying that the proprietary nature of the technology, the elaborate administrative procedure and the seals made sure that the EVM was unhackable and safe. Even while arguing that the EVM was not a computer, but just a calculator, the ECI was closed to releasing the source or making the technology open-sourced. Their argument: open source will generate clones that compromise the process.
An open and inclusive dialog on process simplification to include transaction trail and independent auditability to be initiated by the ECI. The ECI should participate in the technology reform wiki already set up by the various stake-holders. The ECI to provide a detailed response on the manner it conducts tests and specifically the questions raised due to the availability of the 2009 results data in coded form between the 6th and 15th of May.
The wiki community to list out case with examples of how open-source or closed-source technologies can create more trusted, highly secure and contemporary voting processes. The ECI to move to a paper trail to the EVM for all elections beginning immediately. The paper trail to be used as an audit record that must be counted independently at different locations by third parties during the counting process.
Questions about Indian democracy raised by the data on the ECI website Voting Reforms: Options in an imperfect world Copy of letter sent to the ECI requesting clarifications Researching the coded database Review the 2009 Lok Sabha Election Process: Promises and Reality Facts about Meeting with the ECI From: http://government.wikia.com/wiki/Meeting_with_the_ECI Press Information Bureau Government of India Saturday, August 08, 2009 ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES- REGARDING 20:58 IST The
Election Commission had, in an extraordinary measure, invited those who have
recently expressed reservations about the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) to
come and demonstrate the points made in their allegations from 3rd to 8th
August 2009. Those invited included political parties, petitioners before
various courts and some individuals who had been writing to the Commission on
this issue. One hundred EVM samples were obtained on random basis from ten
states namely, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat,
Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab,
Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. These were kept at the Commission’s
office in readiness for scrutiny and for any application to establish its
alleged fallibility. The EVMs were offered for such demonstration in the
presence of a technical experts group as well as engineers representing the EVM
manufacturers, BEL and ECIL. These engineers were especially called from Hyderabad and Bangalore
and stationed in ECI’s office for a whole week for this specific purpose. The
outcome of this exercise is that none of the persons, who were given the
opportunity, could actually demonstrate any tamperability of the ECI-EVM, in
any of the hundred machines put on display. They either failed or chose not to
demonstrate. http://pib.nic.in/release/rel_print_page1.asp?relid=51718 The Complete 1 Hour LIVE Video of EVM Tampering
Those who
does not know about the complete issues I have raised on this forum from
beginning to end may kindly go through all these posts:
Poll panel convenes all-party meeting on voting machine
New Delhi, Aug 6 The Election Commission has convened an all-party meeting Friday to discuss the issue of the effectiveness of the electronic voting machines (EVMs) following doubts about their credibility from various quarters. The meeting is scheduled for Friday afternoon. "In the light of the continuing public debate and the emerging concerns, the Election Commission has invited political parties and petitioners in various courts to discuss their concerns in the presence of technical experts and representatives of manufacturing firms," said a statement issued by the National Forum to promote verifiability, transparency and accountability in Indian elections. The forum was launched recently and consists of experts, NGOs and other eminent citizens as its members. "We welcome this initiative but sincerely hope that the commission examines all the valid concerns and apprehensions expressed by various stakeholders," said its convenor G.V.L. Narasimha Rao. "As a national forum to ensure fairness in Indian elections, we would like the Election Commission to examine and provide credible answers to all the following questions and issues," he said. The commission last week had said they "remain entirely satisfied that EVMs cannot be tampered with. These are fully tamper-proof." The first attack about the reliability of the EVMs came from Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) L.K. Advani. Following his protests, other political leaders also voiced their doubts about the reliability of the EVMs that were used during the April-May Lok Sabha polls. As many cases were filed on the matter in various courts, the commission invited those who had approached the courts and political parties to its headquarters in New Delhi for a demonstration. The meeting would be held in the presence of technical experts as well as engineers representing the EVM manufacturers. Last updated on Aug 6th, 2009 at 20:46 pm IST--IANS http://www.prokerala.com/news/articles/a70179.html
EVM controversy: Old allegations revisited
Ajai Shukla / New Delhi August 07, 2009, 0:32 IST Today, the BJP and the Shiv Sena appeared before the Election Commission to allege that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), which are now used for all Indian elections, can be manipulated to favour a candidate. But old-timers from Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), who perfected the EVMs in the late 1980s, say that all the current allegations have been raised before, and comprehensively disproved. Colonel H S Shankar, former Director (R&D) at BEL, says that EVMs came under fire soon after BEL demonstrated these to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in mid-1989. Shankar, who attended that meeting, recalls that an impressed Rajiv Gandhi suggested the use of EVMs in 150 constituencies during the 1989 general elections. The first challenge came swiftly. On October 15,1989, at a dramatic press conference in New Delhi, Janata Dal chief, Vishwanath Pratap Singh and George Fernandes produced a “computer consultant” to prove that EVMs could easily be rigged. Before a crowd of journalists, the consultant keyed in “3 + 3” into a computer, pressed “Enter” and showed the answer to the crowd. It was 9. In the charged atmosphere of 1989, the Election Commission scrapped the plan to use EVMs that year. But when V P Singh became PM, BEL launched a campaign to prove the reliability of electronic voting. Eventually, the government created an experts committee to examine whether EVMs could be “fiddled”. Professor S Sampath of the Defence R&D Organisation headed the committee, which included Dr P V Indiresan of IIT Delhi, and Dr C Rao Kasarabada, Director Electronic Research and Development Center, Trivandrum. Dr Indiresan gathered four of his brightest research students and gave them five days to subvert the EVM’s source code. Their only restriction: there should be no external damage to the EVM. Colonel Shankar says that BEL gave Dr Indiresan’s team all the EVM circuit diagrams and design drawings; only the encryption-coded software was withheld. “After five days of struggling, they admitted that the EVM was tamper-proof.” At the core of the EVM is a micro-controller chip, built by Hitachi of Japan, called an OTP-ROM (one-time programmable read-only memory). Onto this, the Indian EVM contractors — BEL and Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL) — “burn” the algorithm that makes it record votes. The microprocessor’s “non-volatile” memory ensures that, once the algorithm is written, it can never be overwritten or subverted, not even by the manufacturer. The algorithm makes the EVM function as a vote counter. Each candidate is assigned a numbered button, according to the alphabetic order of the candidates’ names. Each time a voter presses, say, Button No 1, the software adds one vote to the account of Candidate No 1. And since, in each constituency, each political party’s candidate will have different serial numbers (determined by the candidate’s name), there is no possibility of installing a country-wide code that favours one party. After failing to subvert the software, the Sampath Committee staged a mock election to try and subvert the procedure. Failing to do so, it strongly endorsed the EVM. Chief Election Commissioner, R V S Peri Sastry, discussed the test results with all the political party heads, including BJP President L K Advani, all of whom agreed to the use of EVMs in general elections. “The reason why all parties accepted the EVM was simple”, explains Colonel Shankar, “We copied the simplicity and transparency of the earlier system, while doing away with its drawbacks.” Besides the tedious counting of votes, the major drawback in the old system of paper voting was booth capturing. Party goons would take over voting booths and, in a couple of hours, stamp thousands of paper ballots in each booth and slip them into the boxes. EVMs mitigate the effects of booth capturing, since a delay circuit ensures only two votes can be recorded per minute. Even if a booth is captured for an hour, a maximum of 120 votes can be polled. EVMs were used for the first time in general elections in 45 seats in 1999. Polling in the 2004 general elections was entirely on EVMs. This year, again, 671 million voters got the opportunity to vote on EVMs. http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/evm-controversy-old-allegations-revisited/366219/
SPECIAL REPORT | Anupam Saraph and Madhav Nalapat (6 Aug. 2009) DON’T BANK ON EVMS
Were the results of some Lok Sabha constituencies decided even before polling?
http://www.covertmagazine.com/anupham.htm EVMs should generate hard copy for voter: Jayalalithaa August 5th, 2009 - 9:44 pm ICT by IANS Chennai, Aug 5 (IANS) Continuing her tirade against electronic voting machines (EVMs), Leader of Opposition in Tamil Nadu and AIADMK general secretary J. Jayalalithaa said Wednesday that the voting machines can be hacked or manipulated. Citing media reports about a Hyderabad based software engineer Hari Prasad who on behalf of a non governmental organisation (NGO) demonstrated how EVMs can be tampered with, Jayalalithaa said in a statement: “This should come as an eye-opener not only to the Election Commission of India and the judiciary but also to the voting public.” She said the main problem is that in an electoral exercise, if tampering or hacking of EVMs is suspected, there are no means whatsoever to ascertain or prove before the authorities or the court that hacking has been done. “It is equally impossible to prove that hacking has not been done. The reason for this is that the EVMs in use in our country do not generate a hard copy or a coded print-out. At the time of voting, unless the EVM simultaneously generates a physically verifiable hard copy, it would be impossible to ascertain the veracity of any complaints of tampering.” According to her in a democracy, every voter should know whether the vote cast has gone to the candidate or party it was meant for. “In the absence of such certainty, the entire democratic process will be rendered a mockery. It is to ensure that democracy, in its true sense, is brought back that the AIADMK decided to boycott by-elections to five assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu,” she added. Five assembly constituencies in the state are scheduled to have byelections Aug 18.
Jaya cites EVMs as reason for bypoll boycott
Chennai, Wednesday 5 August 2009: AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa, who has been strongly critical of electronic voting machines, today cited the issue of reliability of the EVMs, a reason for boycotting the August 18 assembly bypolls in five seats in Tamil Nadu. Noting the recent demonstration by an NGO that EVMs can be tampered with, she said, “This should come as an eye-opener not only to the Election Commission, but also to the voting public,” and added,” In a democracy, every voter should know whether the vote cast has gone to the candidate or party it was meant for.” In the
absence of such certainty, the entire democratic process would be rendered a
“mockery”, she said in a statement here. “It is to ensure that democracy in its
true sense is brought back that AIADMK decided to boycott the bypolls. http://www.asianetindia.com/news/jaya-cites-evms-reason-bypoll-boycott_67299.html வாக்குப் பதிவு இயந்திரத்தில் தில்லுமுல்லு செய்ய முடியும் First Published : 03 Aug 2009 01:12:41 AM IST Last Updated : http://dinamani.com/Images/article/2009/8/3/3evm.jpg வாக்குப் பதிவு இயந்திரத்தில் எப்படியெல்லாம் தில்லு முல்லு செய்ய வாய்ப்புள்ளது என்பதை ஒரிசா தலைநகர் புவனேசுவரத்தில் ஞாயிற்றுக்கிழமை விளக்குகிறார் தகவல் புவனேசுவரம், ஆக. 2: மின்னணு வாக்குப் பதிவு இயந்திரத்தில் தில்லுமுல்லு செய்ய முடியும் என்பதை தன்னார்வ அமைப்புகள் நிரூபித்துள்ளன. ஒரிசா தலைநகர் புவனேசுவரத்தில் ஞாயிற்றுக்கிழமை நடைபெற்ற நேரடி விளக்க நிகழ்ச்சியில், மின்னணு வாக்குப்பதிவு இயந்திரத்தில் எப்படியெல்லாம் தில்லுமுல்லு செய்ய முடியும் என்பதை அவர்கள் விளக்கிக் காட்டினர். முன்னாள் நீதிபதிகள், ஓய்வுபெற்ற அதிகாரிகள், அரசியல் தலைவர்கள், பத்திரிகையாளர்கள் முன்னிலையில் இந்த நேரடி விளக்கம் நடைபெற்றது. ஒரு குறிப்பிட்ட கட்சி அதிக வாக்குகள் கிடைக்கும் வகையில் வாக்குப் பதிவு இயந்திரத்தில் புரோஹிராம் செய்து தவறு செய்ய முடியும் என்பதை நேரடியாக ஜன சைத்திரிய வேதிகா அமைப்பின் துணைத் தலைவர் வி.வி. ராவ் விளக்கினார். மின்னணு வாக்குப்பதிவு இயந்திரத்தில் முறைகேடு செய்ய முடியும் என்று மின்னணு தொழில்நுட்ப நிபுணர்கள் பலரும் தேர்தல் பார்வையாளர்களும் கருத்துத் தெரிவித்துள்ளனர் என்று "நெட்இண்டியா' அமைப்பைச் சேர்ந்த ஹரி பிரசாத் தெரிவித்தார். தில்லுமுல்லு செய்ய முடியாத அளவில் தற்போதைய இயந்திரங்களை மேம்படுத்தும்வரை இவற்றை எந்தத் தேர்தலிலும் பயன்படுத்தக் கூடாது என்று அவர்கள் வலியுறுத்தினர். வாக்குப்பதிவு இயந்திரத்தில் தில்லுமுல்லு செய்ய முடியும் என்பதை ஹைதராபாத், தில்லி, நாக்பூர், மும்பை மற்றும் புணே ஆகிய நகரங்களில் ஏற்கெனவே நேரடியாக விளக்கி உள்ளோம் என்றார் அவர். தில்லுமுல்லு செய்ய முடியும் என்பதை தில்லியில் தங்கள் முன்னிலையில் நேரடியாக நிரூபிக்குமாறு தேர்தல் ஆணையம் எங்களுக்கு அழைப்பு விடுத்துள்ளது. தேர்தல் ஆணையத்திலும் இதை நிரூபிப்போம் என்று அவர்கள் கூறினர். நன்றி தினமணி, http://dinamani.com/edition/story.aspx?&SectionName=India&artid=99832&SectionID=130&MainSectionID=130&SEO=&Title= எலன் செந்தில் ‘Tampered' EVMs: Opp cries foul Sandeep Mishra, TNN 3 August 2009, 11:17pm IST BHUBANESWAR: Enthused by an IT expert's claims that electronic voting machines (EVMs) could be manipulated, Opposition parties on Monday said there was need for a "thorough probe" into the alleged misuse of EVMs during the recent twin polls in the state. After biting the dust in the elections, leaders from Congress, BJP as well as other parties had accused the ruling BJD of "manipulating" the EVMs to its advantage during the polls to secure a landslide triumph. Following
software engineer Hari K Prasad's demonstration here on Sunday that the EVMs
were vulnerable to tampering, state BJP leaders said they would seek legal
refuge if necessary. "We are keeping a watch on the developments. The
Election Commission has asked the experts to demonstrate before it how the EVMs
could be manipulated. The experts would do the demonstration before EC on
August 6. If the commission does not act to our satisfaction, then we would
consider moving court," state BJP president Suresh Pujari told TOI. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-4853832,prtpage-1.cms (Rahul C. Mehta)
BEL to certify EVMs. EC’s credibility problem Published
by: Noor Khan
Krishnagiri
(TN), Aug 3 Bangalore based publicsector undertaking Bharat Electronics Ltd
(BEL) will certifyall the 800 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to be used
forthe August 18 assembly bypolls from Bargur constituency in thedistrict.
http://www.samaylive.com/news/bel-to-certify-evms/642764.html
AIADMK boycott of by-elections The
decision of the opposition parties in Tamil Nadu to boycott the by-elections to
five assembly constituencies is an expression of no-confidence in the electoral
process in general and the Election Commission in particular, rather being
aimed at the ruling DMK-Congress combine. http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=303&page=4
Debate The
inflow of black money in electoral process is a great menace. The Hon’ble
Supreme Court has observed after discussing various issues in this regard based
on real incidents as brought on record that the political parties and
candidates collect money from undisclosed and doubtful sources for the purpose
of fostering their electoral prospect. In the case of Common Cause, a
registered society -vs- Union of India, reported in (1996) 2 SCC 752 the
Supreme Court has discussed the ill-effect of black money in electoral process
and the consequences ensuing therefrom during the next tenure of the government
coming in power. The initial incorporation of corrupt money through illegal
means result in corruption in executive compulsorily and in the process the
people are always deprived from the benefits they are entitled. The Supreme
Court, therefore, has made as many as seven recommendations making it
obligatory on the part of the political parties to submit return in regard to
their income and expenditure. In its report dated 31.3.2002 the NCRWC has also
highlighted the problem of high cost of election and abuse of money power under
paragraph 4.14 of its report. It has been opined that present provisions of law
have a significant loophole in the shape of explanation 1 to section 77 (1) of
the RP Act 1951 under which the amounts spent by person other than the
candidate and his agents are not counted in the election expenses. All extra
expenditure even when known and proven can be shown to have been spent by the
party or by any friends thereby taking it beyond the enforceable realms. The
report therefore recommended for suitable amendment, inter alia, by deleting
explanation-1 to section 77(1) of the RP Act 1951. http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=303&page=10 EVMs can be manipulated, claim experts IANS August 2nd, 2009 BHUBANESWAR - An electronic experts group Saturday challenged the poll panel’s claim that the electronic voting machines (EVM) are tamper proof, and said the voting devices can be tampered with in many ways. Claiming that there are loopholes in the EVMs, the expert team here demonstrated how the machines can be tampered through a prototype EVM they have developed. “EVMs have many loopholes. We are challenging those who claim that EVMs are infallible. There are many security leakages in these machines which can give us a manipulated result,” said Hari K. Prasad, a Hyderabad based electronics expert and head of Net India Pvt Ltd. The claim by the electronic expert group comes a day after the Election Commission Saturday maintained that the EVMs were “fully tamper-proof” and invited political parties and others who had raised doubts about the credibility of the machines to come for a demonstration to set their misgivings at rest “once and for all”. About 1.3 million EVMs were used during the April-May Lok Sabha polls. Of these, 400,000 were new. “Leave apart the old EVMs, the upgraded machines are not fully tamper proof,” Prasad told a gathering. The group was accompanied by the Hyderabad-based NGO, Jana Chetana Vedika, which had earlier filed a PIL in the Supreme Court challenging the infallibility of EVMs. The group is making another demonstration to nail the poll panel’s claims next week before a technical experts team. Prasad said mechanisms like printing a confirmation paper slip after voting, like in credit cards, would make the process more credible. http://blog.taragana.com/n/evms-can-be-manipulated-claim-experts-128314/ EVM tampering: EC schedules demos first week Aug
ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA Nirvachan Sadan, Ashoka Road, New Delhi-110001 No- PN/ECI/40/2009 Dated 1st August, 2009
Subject- Electronic Voting Machines- regarding
Press Note
The Supreme Court of India, while disposing of a petition filed by Shri V. V. Rao and three others, raising questions about use of Electronic Voting Machines in the elections, on 27 July 2009 observed that the petitioners could approach the Election Commission in the matter. The Election Commission had already on 22nd July 2009, written to one of the petitioners to come and demonstrate the ‘so called manipulation of the EVM’. Following the apex court’s orders, the petitioners approached the Election Commission to consider the points raised by them. The Commission has replied back to the petitioners on 31st July 2009, reiterating its invitation to them to come and demonstrate the points made in their allegations about possible tampering of EVMs, preferably in the week starting from 3rd of August 2009.
Similar petitions have been filed before three High Courts in the country. These are the Madras High Court, the Bombay High Court and the High Court of Madhya Pradesh (Jabalpur bench). These petitions also raise allegations about the possibility of tampering with the EVMs. The Election Commission has invited these petitioners to come and demonstrate their points before the Commission.
In this connection, the Commission has taken note of certain news reports and more recently one advertisement suggesting that the Electronic Voting Machines used for polling can be tampered with. The Commission has also received a few communications from individuals and political parties raising the possibility of manipulation of the EVMs.
The Election Commission remains entirely satisfied that EVMs cannot be tampered with. These are fully tamper-proof. So far, no one has been able to demonstrate that EVMs used by the Election Commission can be tampered or manipulated. EVMs have served the country’s elections well. These were introduced after long ranging political, technical and administrative consultations since 1979. The use of machines has helped prevent several electoral malpractices and resulted in more efficient conduct of elections. Judgments from various courts have upheld the use of EVMs and technical experts have endorsed the machines from time to time. In fact, the Karnataka High Court has hailed the EVM as ‘a national pride’. Similarly, the Madras High Court, after elaborate consideration of the issue in a batch of petitions in 2001, rejected allegations that the EVMs could be tampered.
The issues recently raised by petitioners in the Courts and by some others, broadly allege the possibility of tampering with the machine during the manufacturing process or while operating the machine. It has also been mentioned that some of the western countries have given up using the EVMs. The fact is that unlike the machines used by other countries, which are based on operating systems, the software in the EVM chip is one time programmable and is burnt into the chip at the time of manufacture. Nothing can be written on the chip after manufacture. The EVM in India is a fully standalone machine without being part of any network and with no provision for any input. In addition, elaborate administrative measures and procedural checks are in place to make the EVM doubly safe against any possible tampering or misuse. So, it is completely tamper proof.
At the same time, the Election Commission is fully alive to its onerous responsibility not to allow even a small shade of doubt about any aspect of its operation. While the Commission completely rejects the contention regarding fallibility of the EVMs, it has now decided to go the extra distance by inviting all those who have expressed reservations about the machine to come and demonstrate the points made in their allegations. Those who have made petitions before the Courts have been invited for the purpose along with the political parties who have written to the Commission. The demonstration has been scheduled at the headquarters of the Election Commission of India in New Delhi in the first week of August 2009. This will be done in the presence of a technical experts group as well as engineers representing the EVM manufacturers. The Election Commission expects that the demonstration would once for all set at rest any misgiving anywhere, in the interest of the country’s electoral democracy. (R.K.SRIVASTAVA) SECRETARY http://eci.nic.in/press/current/pn010809.pdf Punjab Newsline INLD calls for barring EVM's in elections Punjab Newsline Network Thursday, 30 July 2009 CHANDIGARH: Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) has called for barring the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in elections. INLD has also stressed the need to call an all party meeting to deliberate on the issue. INLD Secretary General & Rajya Sabha MP Mr Ajay Singh Chautala said that in view of the ongoing controversy and allegations by different non-Governmental organizations about the chances of tampering in the EVMs, there should be an inclusive national debate on the issue. He said that the issue is paramount as it is related to the impartiality of the elections and faith of the billions of voters in the democracy. Next Vidhan Sabha elections should be held by Ballot Papers till the controversy is resolved to the satisfaction of all, he added. Mr Chautala said that many regional & national political parties including partners of NDA have expressed apprehensions and doubt over the impartiality of the EVMs, so all doubts should be clarified and the use of EVMs be banned till the issue is sorted out to the satisfaction of all. Delhi’s former chief secretary & IIT alumnus, Mr Omesh Saigal has also demonstrated the chances of the hacking and managing the people’s mandate before the Election Commission. It is a serious & considerable matter, which should be urgently addressed to continue the 62 year old unblemished record of our country’s democracy. The issue is larger as it is related to sustenance of democracy and credibility of the country and international image, he added. INLD leader said that government & Election Commission should give top priority to addressing the objections and chances of “rigging, programming and hacking” as otherwise; elections would become farce and lose their credibility. Various countries like Germany, Netherland have already discontinued the use of EVMs in their elections. INLD leader said that the country should revert to the older ballot papers unless Election Commission is able to ensure the people that Electronic Voting Machines are foolproof and every possibility of their malfunctioning is being taken care of. The possibility of EVMs' malfunctioning must be addressed in the interest of free democracy and faith of the electorate, Mr Chautala said. http://www.punjabnewsline.com/content/view/17801/
Sukhbir demands all party meet on EVMs Chandigarh, Jul 28 (PTI) Shiromani Akali Dal president
Sukhbir Singh Badal today demanded that Elections Commission should call an all
party meet, to reach a consensus on the reliability and non-corruptibility of
Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and their use in future elections. http://www.ptinews.com/news/198756_Sukhbir-demands-all-party-meet-on-EVMs Results
of the 15th Parliamentary Elections Results of the 15th Lok Sabha elections are extremely shocking and unexpected. The exit poll results were all wrong without exception. Even the results of the last parliamentary elections held in 2004 were wrong. It is surprising that on both the occasions the beneficiary of the wrong results was the same party, namely, the Congress.
SC dismisses lawsuit doubting EVMs By janamejayan But this is not the end of it. It will be the same supreme court that will rule to the surprise and consternation of the rulers who usurped power by fraud. Watch my prediction. IANS NEW
DELHI: The Supreme Court Monday refused
to entertain a lawsuit by an election watch group doubting the credibility of
the Electronic Voting Machines A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan,
while rejecting the lawsuit The bench, which also included Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice Cyriac Joseph, however, gave the petitioners freedom to again approach the apex court if their grievances are not addressed by the poll panel. Appearing for the election watch group, senior counsel Sanjay Parekh sought to impress upon the court that due to the growing political distrust against the EVMs it had become imperative for the court to set up a panel of experts to examine the functioning of the voting machines and ascertain whether they are tamper proof. “All I want from this court is to set up a panel to examine the machines and then submit its report to this court,” Parekh pleaded, but the court refused to accept his plea. The lawsuit was filed by two officials of a Hyderabad-based election watch group and two electronic engineers, who had contended that it was possible to tamper with the software of the machine and rig the election. The lawsuit sought formation of a panel to examine the EVMs and decide if they needed to be improved or abandoned in favour of the ballot paper. Election Watch official V.V. Rao and engineers A. Kankipati and Y. Vasaya contended in their lawsuit that “several experts and election watch groups and individuals, who have been monitoring the election process have found that EVMs could be manipulated and tampered with.” “They have analysed the results in several constituencies, which indicates that there is something drastically wrong with the EVMs,” the petitioners claimed. The lawsuit also raised the issue of secrecy of the votes, pointing out that EVMs are not able to even protect the secrecy of voters and the votes cast by them. Arguing for formation of an expert panel, Parekh contended that two expert panels appointed by the Election Commission in 1990 and 2005 had indicated that there were several lacunae in the functioning of EVMs and they needed to be rectified. Later, speaking to IANS, Election Commission’s legal consultant S.K. Mendiratta sought to refute the doubts being raised about the EVMs. “We have been writing to one and all, who have been raising doubts about the EVMs, to approach the Election Commission and demonstrate to us how the EVM could be tampered with,” said Mendiratta, who was former principal secretary of the poll panel. “No one has turned up till now to ask for any demonstration,” he said, adding that at least three high courts and the apex court have approved of the EVMs’ functional authenticity. http://janamejayan.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/sc-dismisses-lawsuit-doubting-evms/ Only poll panel can deal with EVMs issue: Supreme Court New Delhi (PTI, The Hindu, 28 July 2009): The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain a PIL questioning the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) saying any grievance relating to them could be raised with the Election Commission. The apex court said it was not underestimating the concern raised in the petition but the issues relating to the working of the EVMs have to be dealt by the Election Commission. "We are not underestimating your stand but you have to approach the right place which is Election Commission," a Bench comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justices P. Sathasivam and Cyriac Joseph said. The Bench said the petitioner is at liberty to make representations before the Election Commission which will look into the issue. It said if the representation is made before the EC then even political parties can express their views. The PIL filed by V.V. Rao had questioned the functioning of EVMs and sought a direction to the Election Commission to stop using them till the machines are made tamper-proof. Advocate Sanjay Parikh, appearing for the petitioner, had suggested an expert committee be appointed to examine the issues raised in the petition and submit its report to the apex court. However, the Bench was from the beginning of the view that such issues could be raised before EC. "At this stage, you must approach the EC," it said without giving much credence to the submission that the issues have been raised before three different High Courts. http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/002200907280382.htm SC declines to hear PIL on EVM functioning The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain a Public Interest Litigation, questioning the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines and seeking a direction to the Election Commission to withhold using them till the machines are made tamper proof. A Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan while declining to hear the PIL, directed the petitioner, V V Rao, to make a representation before the Election Commission in connection with the matter. Rao, in his petition, said several experts and election watch groups have claimed that EVMs could be manipulated. They have analysed electronics results of several constituencies and indicated that there is something drastically wrong with the EVMs, it said. The existing EVMs are vulnerable and should not be used for any election till the time the machines are made tamper proof, Rao claimed in his petition. http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/jul/27/sc-declines-to-hear-pil-on-evm-functioning.htm EVM and electoral reforms By Nishitendu Chaudhury (Organiser, August 02, 2009 ) The EC within the meaning of Article 324(1) of the Constitution is duty bound to fulfill the Constitutional aspiration that an election is free and fair and that it manifests the will of the people. The role of the EC within the bounds of the law in force has to be analysed to see as to how far such aspirations have been fulfilled. Free and fair election is the basic foundation of a
democratic polity. In our system of democracy, people elect members of the
legislatures both at the Centre as well as at the State by universal adult
suffrage. From these legislators are the political executives drawn to rule the
country or the state as the case may be. i. there should be a set of laws and rules making provisions with respect to all matters relating to or in connections with elections and it should be decided as to how these laws and rules are to be made; ii. there should be an executive charged with the duty of securing the due conduct of elections; and iii. there should be a judicial tribunal to deal with dispute arising out of or in connection with elections. Following Ponnuswamy, the Supreme Court held in
Mohinder Singh Gill-Vs-CEC (reported in AIR 1978 SC 851) that the power under
Article 324 was very wide and under the power derived from the said Article
Election Commission has power to cancel a poll in a constituency and it is also
held that to direct a re-poll was part of election process and thus
jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 was because for the non
obstinate clause in Article 329(b) of the Constitution. A. Phase I (Enrolment stage) i. Erroneous inclusion/deletion of names in the electoral roll deliberately or unwillingly by unbecoming acts of the employees/enumerators; ii. Error on the part of the District and State Election Officers in regard to disposal of objections in regard to erroneous inclusion/deletion in the roll and the appeal arising there from deliberately or unwillingly; iii. Erroneous act on behalf of the EC in this regard deliberately or unwillingly; B. Phase II (during poll process by political parties and candidates) i. Criminalisation and consequent use of physical force and mafia in polluting the atmosphere of free and fair poll; ii. Use of black money in violation of law holding the field. iii. Subversive activities by way of dividing people on the basis of caste, creed, language and religion; C. Phase-III (poll day violations) i. Corrupt practices by candidates and their supporters under section 123 of the RP Act, 1951; ii. Manipulation of voting machinery (both man and machine) by poll staff and/or candidate or his supporters; iii. Innovative rigging popularly called as classical rigging. D. Phase-IV (post-poll defection) Let us examine the position in detail. i. Willful inclusion or deletion in the electoral roll by the staff is a much known phenomenon. In case well organised political forces, the same is systematically done to inflate the number of supporters and to deflate the number of the voters of the opposite camps. Sometimes names of dead persons are allowed to remain or rather preserved in the electoral roll for impersonation. An efficient door to door visit is the only alternative to curb such menace. However, steps for general awareness among voters is also a must to put a check and balance on the erring staff. It does not appear that a common people is much aware and concerned for a defect free electoral roll. There does not appear to be seriousness on the part of the executive and the EC to inculcate awareness among the people in this regard. Lack of concern in this matter has gone to such an extent that even a large section of the educated middle class prefer to enjoy an additional holiday at home rather than standing in queue for casting vote. This is an ominous sign for a vibrant democracy. ii. The District and State Election Officers work under the disciplinary control of the state government during the whole year except the election time. The corrupt politicians and the executives take opportunity of the situation and exert influence on the bureaucracy to manipulate the process in regard to disposal of objections and appeals under the RP Act 1950 and the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961. To ensure an independent and impartial action reasonably beyond influence by executive, it is necessary that the autonomy of the EC be made complete in regard to services under it by providing a skeletal staff under it up to Sub-Divisional level if need be by introducing an all-India Service under the Election Commission like Indian Election Service. iii. The Election Commission is headed by a Chief Election Commissioner under Article 324(1) of the Constitution. In addition to the CEC, The President may appoint one or more Election Commissioners under the said Article. The President makes the appointment on the advice of the Council of Ministers under Article 74 of the Constitution and thus obviously the will and choice of the political executive actively work behind the appointment. A political executive shall seldom miss a chance to pack the EC with man of its choice so as to get all possible undue benefits in the hour of need. The controversy triggered by the former CEC, Gopalaswami in regard to role of then Election Commissioner Naveen Chawla brought this to the focus. At least allegations have come on record that Naveen Chawla received instructions from the leader of the INC party before exercise of its jurisdiction which itself is unfortunate irrespective as to whether the allegations were correct or not. However, the finger of suspicion continues to remain pointed towards him even after the conclusion of the election process of the14th Lok Sabha. At least one election petition from the State of Arunachal Pradesh has dared the present CEC (N Chawla) alleging in an Election Petition that the EC has committed injustice by not exercising the jurisdiction vested on it by Section 58 of the RP Act 1951 even after it was proved to the hilt that at least seven polling stations under 3, Mukto LAC of Arunachal Pradesh registered more than 100 per cent polling which is not possible unless the booth was captured. There are 12 other polling stations under the same constituency which showed about 96 per cent polling whereas the average polling rate of the constituency is 46 per cent approximately. Bringing the office of the EC under the penumbra on suspicion could have been averted if the offices under the Commission would have been filled up by a transparent means rather than whims and caprice of the party in power. Perhaps this is why the National Commission To Review The Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) in its report submitted on 31.3.2002 recommended in this regard that appointment to the office of CEC and other ECs should be made the basis of recommendation of a collegium consisting of the Prime Minister, the leaders of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. I feel that such a collegiums may also consist of three persons, namely, the PM, leader of the Opposition in the Parliament and the Chief Justice of India. The phase II factors referred to above are also important and have direct bearing in preventing a free and fair poll. The 170th report of the Law Commission submitted in the 1999 and the report of the NCRWC submitted on 31.3.2002 have dealt with the seriousness the aspect of criminalisation and mafia force in tilting the election result. It has been suggested that a ban should be put against candidature of a person against whom an inquiry or trial for commission of heinous crime like murder, rape etc. are pending since six months or more before the commencement of the election process. (To be concluded) http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=302&page=12 BJP for use of EVM paper back-up in state polls TNN 25 July 2009, 04:40am IST PUNE: State BJP leader Kirit Somaiya on
Friday said the party is set to put forward a demand for use of electronic
voting machines (EVM) with paper back-up during the forthcoming state
elections. He said that a high-level delegation including BJP and Shiv Sena
leaders will meet the election commission on the said issue soon. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4817819.cms BJP demands ban on EVMs PUNE, Jul 26, 2009 (Arab News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Expressing serious concern over the way electronic voting machines can malfunction, former Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Mumbai Kirit Somaiya this evening demanded a ban on the use of machines that have no paper backups and strongly advocated adopting electronic voting machines that produce paper receipts. "The BJP will put forth a demand for use of electronic voting machines (EVM) with paper back-up during the forthcoming state assembly elections," he said. "Under the proposed system, after casting a vote, the EVM will immediately produce a slip. This slip will have a sign printed, confirming that the vote has gone to same candidate to which the voter intends to choose."The voter would then drop this slip in a ballot box so that the votes can be verified.
EVMs: EC indulges in suppressio veri What is shocking is that EC has NOT told Rediff that the programs of EVM have been changed recently (newly programmed used first time in Delhi assembly polls) by introducing time/date stamp. This time/date stamping itself is a trojan horse which makes the system open to internet since time computation is OUTSIDE of the standalone EVM (as claimed by EC and assuming, without conceding that their claim is valid). The timer process can be interrupted by an external wireless manipulation. As noted in the wiki entry by Anupam Saraph, EC had KNOWN the results 10 days before the counting (that is on 6th May when the counting date was 16th May) and in the case of over 100 candidates, the spreadsheets maintained by EC on 6 May tallied with the final results. How did this happen? EC is also silent on audit of the systems when taking delivery from BEL or ECIL. There are also reports that the two companies have outsourced the work :)--. The most important requirement should be continuous auditability by a third party (apart from EC) to the satisfaction of the party agents. Unconstitutionality of the EVMs keeping track of the voter's choice, vitiating the secret nature of the balloting. EC has repeatedly claimed through Indiresan committee that every keystroke is mapped, that means, the vote recorded by the voter can be traced to the voter. This is NOT the way to conduct secret ballot. German SC rightly declared EVM unconstitutional for the simple reason that the ordinary citizen does NOT understand the complex machine. Auditability by the voter is missing from EVM system: 1. voter checking the accuracy of the ballot paper before marking the vote; 2. voter verifying whether he/she has correctly marked it, and 3. voter confident that reconstruction of the vote is possible for authentication in case of electoral dispute. The three processes are possible in a paper ballot and NOT possible in a machine balloting. The date/time stamp introduced in 200,000 (Jan 2009) of the 13 lakh EVMs used for 2009 polls pose serious issues vitiating the public nature of the poll: 1. Two system programs were used for the same election (were parties told about this?) 2. Date/time stamp negates the 'stand-alone' nature claimed for the EVMs and provide entry points for external wireless manipulation. 3. Outsourcing of making the EVMs to private parties introduces another trojan horse. How about the secret nature of the balloting if everything about what the voter does in polling booth gets recorded? The big brother, yantra watches the voter, so it is yantradesh, not janadesh Kalyanaraman 26 July 2009 EVMs can't be hacked: EC Quraishi July 26, 2009 (Rediff) The functioning of Electronic Voting machines and their alleged manipulation has come under scrutiny in the wake of the questions raised by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. Rediff.com has highlighted many stories about the controversy surrounding the EVMs and the growing opposition to their usage. In a letter to rediff.com, a representative of Election commissioner Dr S Y Quraishi's office has clarified the EC's position over the matter, which is threatening to blow up into a major issue of national concern. In response to the story published doubting the credibility of EVMs, EC Quraishi says, "The EVMs used in India are tamper proof. All EVMs are hard coded to take votes against a Candidate number only and are programmed to function exactly in the same manner. It is not possible to alter the functioning of EVM in any manner whatsoever by the manufacturers or in the field by election staff, as the program is hard coded and fused in the micro controller, which is one time programmable device. No gadgets, including remote means, can be used to alter the program/data stored in EVM. It is in this manner that the ECI's EVMs are wholly different from those used in other countries." While denying the mismatch between Control unit and Ballot Unit, two crucial parts of EVMs, EC Quraishi said, "The embedded program in both the Control Unit and Ballot Unit are masked and cannot be read or altered and the program works on a specific hardware platform, which is specific to the voting machine. Any change in the program will be reflected as an error with tamper check. The program is verified for checksum validity whenever the unit is powered up. Any mismatch prohibits the machine from proceeding further and becomes inoperational." EC Quraishi retreats that it is not possible to hack the machines. He explained, "Apart from that the transparent procedures followed during entire election process starting from manufacturing to the time of counting like first level checking of EVMs by the manufacturers, thereafter storing the EVMs in strong room, preparation of EVMs by the Returning Officer before the candidates or their agents, thereafter storing the EVMs in strong rooms in the presence of candidates or their agents, mock poll by Presiding Officers before the candidates or their agents just before actual poll, sealing and storing of polled EVMs in strong room in the presence of the candidates or their agents etc, it is not possible to taint or hack the EVMs". The EC claims that the EVM used by the Commission is a reliable voting device introduced after technical evaluation by an 'Expert Committee' constituted by the Government of India in 1990. Use of EVMs has been proved to be fruitful as is evident from past elections. EC Quaraishi also listed the past judgmnts in this regard. He said, "Many Courts including the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India have time and again appreciated the efficiency of EVM in many court cases. Attention, in this regard, is invited to the judgment of the Hon'ble High Court of Madras in WP No. 3346, 3633, 4417, 4454, 4466, 4945, 5077, 6038 and 6039 of 2001 dated 10.4.2001, (AIADMK and others Vs. Chief Election Commissioner and others) where the Hon'ble Court dismissed the writ challenging the introduction of EVMs. The petitioner's challenged this ruling of the Madras High Court before the Supreme Court in C.C.2824 and 2825/2001 which was dismissed by the Hon'ble Apex Court in its decision dated 23.4.2001 and the decision of the Madras High Court was upheld. Separately, the Hon'ble High Court of Kerala [ Images ] in E.P. No. 4 of 2001 (T.A.Ahammed Kabeer Vs A.A.Azeez and others) and Hon'ble High Court of Karnatka in E.P.No. 29 of 1999 ( Michael B. Fernandes Vs. C.K.Jaffar Sharif and others) have upheld the EVM as a safe and secure device for conduct of elections. The Hon'ble Karnataka High Court has hailed the EVM as 'a national pride' (judgement dated 5.2.2004 in Michael B Fernandes Vs. C.K.Jaffar Sharif and others in E.P.No. 29 of 1999)." Sheela Bhatt in New Delhi http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/jul/26/evms-cant-be-hacked-says-ec-quraishi.htm What about the manufacturing facilities? Who is he fooling? by indianpatriot on Jul 26, 2009 01:02
AM | Hide
replies Re: Re: Who is he fooling? http://sites.google.com/site/hindunew/electronic-voting-machines Voting Reforms: Options in an imperfect world Most voting practices across the world do not issue any receipts. The voter has no way to know if the vote cast was counted for the chosen candidate. There have been many arguments in favor of as well as against the issue of receipts. A receipt is a confirmation, a proof of counting. It reinforces the value of the vote. It gives every voter the feeling of mattering. The opponents of receipts have argued that they open up vote commerce: exchange of money for votes. Others have argued that voting process without receipts is also open to proxy by commerce. In the world of business proxy voting is both common and legitimate as is the use of this system by lobbyists and interest groups to take over companies or change their directions. The compulsions of the voter or the proxy holder may be diverse, but the common equation is the value of the vote. A proxy holder looks for controlling return on investment- the voter for an advanced dividend for giving up the right to choosing the management. Proxy is sustained as long at it results in the company can continue to grow and yield return-on-investment to the proxy owner as well as serve a better dividend today than the dividend from the better governance as a result of a different choice. As far as the latter is concerned, it is self-fulfilling to prefer proxy. Dividend payments upfront result in the exclusion of future dividends for the voter group that has given up its right to a future dividend. Therefore the choice of upfront dividends seems always better than otherwise. A nation elects its government for the dividends its citizens may receive from the management by the new "board". If the use of proxy serves to be more beneficial to the voters than the management by a government, it may well be the lesser evil to voting without receipts. In a voting process a transaction trail would require each vote be identified with the voter, location and time. This trail would ensure that every vote can be tracked to the source. If there is a transaction trail, it becomes impossible to add or remove votes that do not come from a voter, a location and during a legitimate period. Those against a transaction trail argue of its making the ballot free of secrecy. Those for the trail argue about the inability to ensure legitimate votes from illegitimate ones as those may be cast by any compromise of the polling process. Whatever the merits of secrecy, it certainly fails to enthuse confidence about the voting process and in voter based democracy. What is the difference between the acts of a dictator and a secretly elected ruler? Whatever but a leap of faith can stand witness to the democratic election of the ruler? Rabindranath Tagore dreamt of a land where the mind is without fear and the head held high- will a secret democracy ever lead us into this world where everyone can walk fearlessly and honorably with the choices they make about the way they may be ruled? It is interesting that a secret sunday confession does not rid the world of sinners. Would a sunday of public celebration of virtues make the world a better place? Although voting is a blank cheque to trillions of rupees of spending, a license to control the civil liberty in a country, a framework that pushes thousands of decisions to every citizen it is the most un-audit-able process in a country. There is no way anyone can verify the claims of those in control of the voting process and certify them to be true and correct. There is no way that anyone can follow the transactions of voting and certify that a candidate did indeed get as many votes as counted from legitimate sources. There is no way anyone can certify that the vote cast by anyone actually ended up for the candidate for whom it was destined. There is no way anyone can certify that every voter counted at the polling booth was actually the one who was entitled to vote. Arguably the process of audit requires a transaction trail. A publicly audit-able process would require a public access to the trail. In an age of open-source it is surprising that we opt for closed-audit systems in the name of secrecy. The most that has happened to ease elections is an Electronic Voting Machine. There is little simplification, transparency and security that is built into the system. Why cannot elections happen at ATM's in banks across the country over a specified week in the year? Why can voters not visit the ATM to change their vote- or at least view it as many times as they like over the period of the election? Imagine the value of exchanging the receipt for money if that were possible! Or imagine the mobile being the sign-in with a pin to vote over an election week, as many times as you wish? What an idea sirji? Why not vote not just for the representative but also for key bills brought before the legislative and parliamentary bodies? What use is technology if it cannot widen the base of voting? They say secrecy is the difference between a marriage and an affair. Hold anything secret and even a RTI may not be able to get you justice. The hallmark of civilization is when dissenters can walk fearlessly in a world of pluralism. Are we that far away from a civilized society? The men of character in every civilization rarely hid their true opinions behind secret ballot or diplomatic guile. No land of secret decisions ever yielded a world without fear. Certainly not one where you may hold your head high. Such a land cannot have free knowledge, there would be a price for every information. To create a honest and trusting society we must cast secrecy of voting to history, teach everyone to be proud to stand to their choice and even welcome dissent. Election reform can yield us the world Tagore dreamt about- it can leapfrog the worlds biggest democracy to being the worlds greatest nation. Let us embark on a journey to build our nation together. Let us celebrate the diversity of our votes! From: http://government.wikia.com/wiki/Voting_Reforms:_Options_in_an_imperfect_world Madras HC notice to Election Commission on EVM's While admitting the PIL, a Bench comprising Chief
Justice H L Gokhale and Justice D Murugesan directed the EC to file its counter
within a week. HC issues notices to EC, TN and Centre on EVMs PTI 24 July 2009, 08:39pm IST CHENNAI: The Madras High Court issued notices to the Election
Commission, the Centre, state government and Bharat Electronics Ltd on a
petition filed by PMK seeking a restrain on use of EVMs in the August 18
bypolls to five assembly seats in Tamil Nadu.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-4817169,prtpage-1.cms
'EVMs should have printout backup' Somit Sen, TNN 25 July 2009, 02:46am IST MUMBAI: A Shiv Sena-BJP delegation will meet Election Commission
officials in Delhi
on July 28 to demand a new system of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), which
will have a printout backup facility.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-4817771,prtpage-1.cms New EVMs for by-elections NT Bureau | Thu, 23 Jul, 2009 , 03:34 PM Tamilnadu Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Naresh Gupta today said that improved new Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) would be used in a bid to make voting tamper-proof in the forthcoming by-elections to five Assembly constituencies. Briefing reporters here, the CEO said that the introduction of new
EVMs were necessitated, for some EVMs have been in use for about 10 to 15
years, and are more prone to malfunctioning. There are also efforts to have a communication plan as well as
to adopt the SMS-based system of monitoring the polling stations as done in
Tripura and recommended by the commission for adoption in the state, he added. Naresh Gupta further informed that the EC has written a
letter to the State government urging it not to include the areas coming
under the five Assembly constituencies (going for by-electionsl) in the free
health insurance scheme being implemented by the State government later today. http://newstodaynet.com/printer.php?id=1837 EVMs are NOT fair, NOT transparent, have NO voter verifiable audit trails. ‘Booth capturing and bogus voting is very much possible and very much prevalent’.: Gopalaswamy, ex-Chief Election Commissioner of India. Three essential elements of free and fair elections available to the voter under the Paper-Ballot system are not there in the EVM — checking the accuracy of the ballot paper before marking the vote; verifying whether he/she has correctly marked it, and reconstruction of the vote for authentication in case of electoral dispute. Chennai, July 20, 2009. …For the first time since independence, a registered party has called for a boycott, a party which has ruled a state for more than two decades is shying away from the polls and if this and the reasons, do not make headlines in the national media, it only high lightens the mockery of our democracy. http://www.chennaitvnews.com/2009/07/evm-advance-result-scientific-tamilnadu.html
Elections must be above suspicion
MG Devasahayam, 23 July 2009
The decision of the opposition parties in Tamil Nadu to boycott the by-elections to five assembly constituencies is an expression of no-confidence in the electoral process in general and the Election Commission in particular, rather being aimed at the ruling DMK-Congress combine. The AIADMK press note makes it manifest: ‘Looking at the way elections have been conducted in Tamil Nadu in the last three years and in particular in Thirumangalam constituency and the recent parliamentary polls, the AIADMK has doubts if the Election Commission can function in a free and fair manner’. The opposition alleges that several malpractices took place in the recent elections through use of money and muscle power to win elections and the Election Commission has been a silent spectator. What is strange, but not surprising, is the open admission of such malpractice by three election bigwigs — N Gopalaswami, till recently chief election commissioner, S Y Quraishi, election commissioner (possibly the next CEC) and Naresh Gupta, long-serving chief electoral officer of Tamil Nadu. A couple of weeks ego, while addressing a select gathering in Chennai in the presence of P C Alexander, former Tamil Nadu governor, Gopalaswami was candid: “Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) cannot be hacked as being alleged because these are stand-alone equipment and not connected to any operating system. We have met party muscle-power with government muscle-power by deploying armed central police force in polling booths. But we cannot counter money-power in a similar manner.” He added that ‘In three months Election Commission cannot obliterate the massive money-power acquired by politicians in 57 months’. Gopalaswami also added that though EVMs could not be hacked or tampered with, ‘booth capturing and bogus voting is very much possible and very much prevalent’. The statements of Quraishi and Gupta were also on the same lines, thus creating a credibility crisis about the EC and the electoral process. In this context the ‘Caesar’s wife’ anecdote would be appropriate. In 61 BC, Julius Caesar’s second wife, Pompeia was implicated in a scandal following the annual Feast of the Great Goddess. Though men were not admitted to this religious ritual, the notorious libertine Publius Clodius allegedly disguised himself as a woman and seduced her. Caesar divorced Pompeia and an inquiry was held. However, although several members of Caesar’s family gave evidence in favour of Pompeia, Caesar himself did not and the court asked him why he had demanded a divorce when so much uncertainty surrounded the incident. “Caesar’s wife,” he replied, “must be above suspicion.” This is applicable mutatis mutandis to the situation in Tamil Nadu’s electoral scenario. The EC, the grandmaster of India’s electoral process, described as the ‘greatest democratic exercise on earth’ is held in high esteem in the free-world and cannot afford to lose its reputation. Therefore, though these allegations of electoral malpractices are controversial in nature, the Election Commission and the electoral process must be above suspicion. First, the EVMs. Even assuming these machines are hacker-tamper proof, three essential elements of free and fair elections available to the voter under the Paper-Ballot system are not there in the EVM — checking the accuracy of the ballot paper before marking the vote; verifying whether he/she has correctly marked it, and reconstruction of the vote for authentication in case of electoral dispute. Therefore, its fairness is open to question and doubts have been raised that need to be dispelled. It may be too late in the day to stop the EVM juggernaut. But the Election Commission could build-in a reasonably foolproof safeguard in the form of a verification system. This can be done by a ‘voter-verifiable audit trail’. A printer attached to the voting machine, something like ATMs in banks, could permit a ‘vote verification slip’ to be printed out, giving the candidate and symbol for which the voter has voted. The voter picks up the slip, verifies that the vote has been correctly registered, and deposits it in a safe in front of the polling officer. Boxes containing these slips would be sealed and stored securely to be available for reconstruction of the vote and authentication of election results in case of any dispute. This way, while going hi-tech basic requirements of a free and fair election could be met. Secondly, money-power. Gopalaswami is right when he said ‘party money-power’ cannot be physically countered by ‘government money-power’. But creating fear in the minds of the corrupters can certainly fight it. Countermand elections in constituencies where massive money power is being deployed — as described in Section 123 of the Representation of the People Act — because of which ‘result of the election is likely to be affected’. This will send shivers down the spine of the ‘cash-and-carry candidates’ who are destroying the credibility of the electoral process. The EC could obtain such information through the battery of observers they deploy, whose numbers can be augmented in select ‘rogue constituencies’. As of now, such a provision under Section 59 A 2(b) of the Act is available for ‘booth capturing’ as defined in Section 135A, which covers the physical act of taking possession of polling stations, ballot-boxes/EVM or ballot-papers because of which ‘result of the election is likely to be affected’. Both suggestions could be implemented by the EC immediately. If necessary, the Act could be suitably amended, and that brooks no delay. What is at stake is the integrity of our democracy. (The writer is a retired IAS officer. E-mail: mgd@airtelmail.in) http://tinyurl.com/m9j98m Bring awareness of EVM issues in India Save Indian Democracy Organization is a nonpartisan and nonpolitical organization consists of individuals across the world who are primarily concerned about preserving and protecting the largest democracy of the world, India. While individuals in this organization have worked for many years on aspects of protection of democracy in India, the organization is recently formed to bring about widespread awareness on Electronic Voting Machines in India, particularly in light of many issues raised in 2009 India elections. It consults with team of professionals across the World including Dr. Subramanian Swamy upon whose initiative in 2001 the then CEC Mr. M.S. Gill arranged a demonstration by MIT Professor Sanjay Sarma, the father of RFID Software fame and his wife Dr. Gitanjali Swamy of Harvard on how unsafeguarded the chips used in EVM in India were. We are fortunate to have guidance of Stanford Professor David L. Dill (www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org) who is in the forefront in United States in bringing awareness to EVM issues in US during last 6 years and had considerable success. We are also working with other nonpartisan and non-political Organizations in India such as Voter Watch (www.voterwatch.in) to bring awareness to this issue in India. Primary contact for the Organization is S. Dosapati (www.saveindiandemocracy.org, saveindiandemocracy.org@gmail.com ). Time to rethink on EVMs July 26, 2009 Editorial, Organiser Finally, the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) controversy has reached the apex court. It is not surprising considering the plethora of doubts expressed by almost all political parties and many highly-placed social activists and experts on the reliability of this wonder machine. Experts are unanimous that it is not tamper-proof. It is not only the losers in the 2009 general election who have questioned the reliability of EVMs. The Congress leaders in Orissa too have joined hands with the BJP to file a petition in the court and take up a mass awareness campaign to protest the alleged large-scale tampering of the instrument in the state during election. Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad is on record alleging that manipulation of voting machines had led to the Congress defeat in Orissa. Azad is the party in-charge in the state. The Leader of Opposition LK Advani has demanded the replacing of EVMs with ballot papers. His view was supported by almost all parties including the CPI(M), AIADMK, TDP and Janata Dal(U). Such wide-spread doubts about the EVM is not good for the health of Indian democracy. The RSS former Sarsanghachalak KS Sudarshan, questioning the credibility of EVMs, in Cuttack, the other day, said, the general elections have become a contempt of democracy, as machines are playing a greater role than the voters. He pointed out that EVMs are not being used in developed countries like Germany and the USA. It is time to replace it with ballot paper, he said. It is not that the people’s verdict in the poll-2009 is being questioned. That, so many well-founded arguments have come up about the possibility of tampering with the EVM to manipulate the electoral outcome is a good enough reason to rethink on it. Election Commission of India has received a number of complaints about EVM malpractices from all over the country. The recent spate of articles published in reputed computer engineering magazines and the international press has raised doubts about the integrity of EVMs. Each step in the life cycle of a voting machine—from the time it is developed and installed to when the votes are recorded and the data transferred to a central repository for tallying—involves different people gaining access to the machine, often installing a new software. It will not be hard, according to experts, to plant a parallel programme under another password on one or many voting machines that would, before voters arrived at the polling stations, ensure a pre-determined outcome. The Election Commission was aware of the fundamental flaws in the EVMs since 2000. But no effort was made to correct them. Nor were precautions taken. The debate now has come not only because the Lok Sabha results surprised many, but also because of the unexpected number of seats won or lost by some parties. Of course, the AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa and the TDP leader Chandrababu Naidu have taken up the anti-EVM campaign in a big way because of the stunning performance of the ruling party in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh respectively. Even neutral agencies and individuals have pointed to the chance of rigging in these elections. Experts say that the fundamental flaws in the EVM, which were pointed out to the EC by experts, have not so far been rectified. In 2004, a Supreme Court bench comprising the then Chief Justice VN Khare and two other judges directed the EC to consider the technical flaws in the EVM. This directive came as a result of a PIL filed by Satinath Choudhary, a US-based software engineer. But the EC did not budge. Now several High Courts in the country are hearing PILs on EVMs. And a PIL has reached the Supreme Court also. What is now proved convincingly is that EVMs are not protected against rigging and the EC has not made it tamper-proof in spite of clinching evidence to that effect. It is not a bad-idea for the EC to call an all-party meeting on the subject and review suggestions for restoring the credibility of the electoral system. http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=301&page=4 PMK suggests boycotting TN bypolls Madurai (PTI): There is no point in contesting August 18 bypolls for five Assembly seats in the state as the Election Commission has failed to curb distribution of money to voters during elections, PMK leader S Ramadoss said on Monday. "The EC has failed in all the earlier bye-elections to control money distribution to voters and even the state Chief Electoral Officer has openly admitted to the failure," Dr. Ramdoss told reporters here. "There is no point in political parties contesting elections (in such a situation)," he said. He, however, said that the PMK would support the AIADMK, with whom it had an alliance in the recent Lok Sabha polls, if it contests the bypolls. Bye-elections are being held for the seats of Sri Vaikuntam, Cumbum, Ilayangudi, Bargur and Thondamuthur, which fell vacant either due to the resignation or death of MLAs representing these constituencies. He said the EC should deploy intelligence agents in 100 places to monitor money distribution. The Vanniar dominated party chief also demonstrated to reporters how Electronic Voting Machines (EVM)s could be "rigged" and said even advanced countries of Europe and Japan had now switched back to ballot paper system. The PMK, which drew a blank in all seven constituencies it contested as part of the AIADMK-led front in the Lok Sabha polls, had blamed EVMs for its poor showing. http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/004200907201440.htm EVMs rigged? Poll panel challenges doubters
Watch video: EC – EVMs can’t be rigged; Hacking EVMs not easy
http://ibnlive.in.com/pix/sitepix/07_2009/evm-rig313.jpg Doubting Thomas? Come and prove. We will videograph the whole process, says Election Commissioner SY Quraishi.
New Delhi: The controversy over electronic voting machines (EVMs) has a new twist. The Election Commission has challenged a software developer to prove his claim that EVMs can be programmed to guarantee victories for particular candidates or parties. Ripujit Nomthondam claims the software he has developed can be put into any EVM by activating an already existing secret loop to ensure that by default every fifth vote will go in favour of a chosen candidate. “The software can give two different results: one is a correct count and the other manipulated. I have put one invalid key that can activate the secret loop in the programme code (of EVMs),” claims Nomthondam. But the Election Commission points out that Nomthondam’s software has been developed on a laptop and without access to EVMs. The Saigal brothers, Krishan and Omesh, who first talked about the software, reject the safety claims of the Election Commission’s experts. “We don’t have an EVM so we have asked the Election Commission to give us a machine and give us 10 days. We will show it can be done (EVMs can be tampered with),” says Krishan Saigal. “It is amazing that for Rs 500 a young programmer in seven days can produce a programme which can rig elections.” Meanwhile, head of Election Commission’s experts, Professor PV Indiresan, laughs off Saigal’s complaints about the EVMs. “This is like asking Sita to prove her chastity by giving agni pariksha. That is all I can say,” says Indiresan. And along with Indiresan the Election Commission believes they have foolproof logic on their side and says Nomthondam is painting a rather simplistic picture. It requires six bits of information to access one candidate on every machine and would require the complicity of a large number of officials if even a small section of the 12 lakh EVMs are to be manipulated. Besides, one has to know the source code of the EVMs to programme it to rig. “The EVMs software programme is frozen and cannot be entered and it cannot be rigged,” says Indiresan. The Election Commission has challenged the Saigals and Nomthondam to prove their case. Sources tell CNN-IBN that the Election Commission is bringing in a powerful panel comprising experts and the two manufacturers of EVMs, Bharat Electronics Ltd. and Electronics Corporation of India Ltd, to prove the EVMs’ safety. It has also challenged doubters to prove their suspicions about the machines. “Come and prove. We will videograph the whole process—we throw a challenge. We are 100 per cent confident about the machines,” said Election Commissioner SY Quraishi.
http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/97488/evms-rigged-poll-panel-challenges-doubters.html http://ibnlive.in.com/printpage.php?id=97488§ion_id=3 The
dishonesty or honesty of a system cannot be based on an individual's talent
show , especially to prove it is honest. One person is enough to prove
dishonesty in any system, but is anyone person fit enough in this world to
certify any system as honest or absolutely fool proof beyond any
doubts? Posted by vj at 8:40 PM http://www.chennaitvnews.com/2009/07/evm-great-challenge-boo-boo.html EC urged not to use EVMs for GHMC polls Times of India 18 July 2008 HYDERABAD: Reiterating that EVMs (electronic voting machines) can be tampered, the Jana Chaitanya Vedika and TDP on Thursday urged the Election Commission not to use these machines in the GHMC elections unless all doubts are cleared. The organisation wanted the EC to develop a verification tool,
which can check the programme authenticity inside the chip. He said that EC should either follow the procedure of issuing a printout of the vote cast or should go with the ballot papers. NetIndia, organisation associated with the JCV, prepared model EVMs based on the proforma of the EVMs of EC and demonstrated as to how the machine can be tampered. Hari K Prasad, MD of NetIndia, said the biggest flaw in the EVMs used by the EC is that if the machine cables of two EVMs (assembly and Parliament) are swapped the result will be different. He said the chip used by the EC is made by government companies, which “can be managed.” “If the EC can give us information about the chip programming then they can analyse and show how the EVMs can be tampered.” Prasad said the machines can be manipulated even at the time of activation. Giving an example, he said a programme can be set like ten per cent more votes for the candidate for whom first 20 votes were cast and the candidate can send those first 20 people to the booth and make them stand in queue ahead of others. The TDP demanded that usage of the EVMs be temporarily suspended till all the doubts about their genuineness are cleared. http://girgut.com/hyderabad_daily_news/2009/07/18/ec-urged-not-to-use-evms-for-ghmc - Experts claim EVMs can be manipulated TNN 18 July 2009, 05:58am IST NAGPUR:
The electronic machines can be tampered with or manipulated at several stages
before or during polling was demonstrated here on Friday by an electronics
expert and a team of non-political social activists from Hyderabad who have
filed a petition recently in the Supreme Court for a fool-proof machine to
record votes. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4791127.cms EVMs to stay: Election Commissioner By IANS CHANDIGARH: In the backdrop doubts raised by
certain political leaders on the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines, the
Election Commission on Friday said there was no move to discontinue use of EVMs
asserting these were "100 per cent tamper proof". http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/print.aspx?artid=cEOM/p/X9zA= No move to discontinue EVMs: EC STAFF REPORTER 20:47 HRS IST Chandigarh, July 17
(PTI) In the backdrop doubts raised by certain political leaders on the
functioning of Electronic Voting Machines, the Election Commission today said
there was no move to discontinue use of EVMs asserting these were "100 per
cent tamper proof". http://ptinews.com/news/179949_No-move-to-discontinue-EVMs--EC Hyderabad's engineer demonstrates tampering of EVM STAFF REPORTER 19:30 HRS IST Nagpur, July 17 (PTI) As the debate on reliability of
Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) is going on, an election watch-dog and an NGO
from Hyderabad today demonstrated 'tampering' of EVMs and claimed that these
machines could be easily manipulated. http://www.ptinews.com/news/179721_Hyderabad-s-engineer-demonstrates-tampering-of-EVMDemo held to show EVM can be tampered with By Express
News Service http://www.expressbuzz.com/Images/article/2009/7/17/17jul_demo.jpgNetIndia Managing Director V.Hari Prasad (left) and Jana Chaitanya Vedika member Prasad showing the EVM. HYDERABAD: Disputing with the Election Commission’s claim that electronic voting machines (EVMs) were absolutely tamper-proof, members of Jana Chaitanya Vedika (JCV), along with technical experts, demonstrated today that the machines were tamperable. “The EVMs currently used in elections are vulnerable and tamperable. It is possible to bring a particular political party into power by tampering the machines. Hence the need for the Election Commission to use ballot papers till the EVMs are made fool-proof. Our intention, however, is not for having ballot system in the country,’’ they said. NetIndia managing director and technical expert Hari K Prasad, along with JCV president V Lakshmana Reddy, vice-president VV Rao and others, at a press conference here, conducted a mock, actual and modified polling and counting of votes to prove that the EVMs could be tampered with and a favourable result to a particular political party ensured. In one of the demonstrations, they made Lok Satta Party, at the request of mediapersons, gain maximum number of votes vis-avis other parties. The EVM showed the LSP getting nine votes though it was polled only three (of the total 21 votes). Programme of a chip could be fixed or set at the time of machine preparation or before the beginning of counting. Only individual machines (EVMs) could be tampered with but not all the machines at a time, they explained. They demanded implementation of e-governance policy to ensure implementation of `open standard’ mechanism relating to EVMs. Besides, they also sought development of `verification tool’ to check the programme that drives the EVM. We are ready to prove that the EVMs are tamperable if at all we get an access (to EVMs of Election Commission). There are instances of EVM tampering in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and some other parts of the country in the recent elections. In fact, there was 100 percent polling recorded in some booths in Andhra Pradesh where the votes polled went in favour of one party. Several petitions were filed in various courts in the country on such instances,’’ they said. Asked about the PIL filed in the Supreme Court, Hari Prasad said the case, which would come up for hearing next week, was filed on technology aspect. http://tinyurl.com/n477bl
Elections were held in 5 phases across India. The last phase of polling was completed on the 13th of May 2009. The counting of votes was to begin on the 16th of May 2009. The data of various candidates could be obtained from the Election Commission of India's website. In order to track the elections and upload candidate and constituency information onto this wiki, we accessed this website and regularly downloaded the CandidateAC file from there. This spreadsheet had various columns containing information of all candidates including their political affiliations, age, address etc. There was also a column for "votes polled" and some "coding" called “DECODE(FINALISED,'YES','FINALISED',)”. By virtue of the Election Rules no votes polled data/exit poll was to be available before the 16th of May 2009, least of all on the Election Commission of India Website. Unexpected Votes Data in Coded Spreadsheet The excel spreadsheets on candidate information for all India downloaded from the ECI website between the 6th and 15th of May had "coded" Candidate Names, Party Names and votes polled. Despite repeated queries the ECI has not clarified the meaning of this data. This has resulted in widespread speculation and raised serious questions about the the management and integrity of the democratic process. The serious questions being asked include: § What was the coded data in the "votes polled" column in the versions of the spreadsheet downloaded between the 6th and 11th of May? § Why were the spreadsheets between these dates "coded" all of a sudden? § If the polling was not even complete how could "votes polled" data be available for all but 47 of the 8071 candidate? § If EVM’s were secure with district collectors, and elections were not even held in many constituencies, how was the data for all but 47 of the 8071 candidates available to the ECI on files downloaded between these dates? § If the data in these files on the 6th was test/dummy data why does it change for some constituencies on the 6th, 7th and 11th May 2009? § If data in these files was test/dummy data, how does it match the winner trend in 108 constituencies? § If data in these files was test/dummy data, why was it not removed on the 7th after the NIC and ECI were intimated on the 6th? Why was there no explanation from NIC/ECI to date? § If the the data in these files was test/dummy data, what was it testing? Why was this test taking place during the polling period? § What are the tests the ECI can provide to distinguish test data from real data? § If the data in these files is test/dummy data, why is real data not uploaded in this file to date, especially as it was removed on the 15th of May 2009? § What tests were these that required only some data to keep changing and others to remain unchanging? § If the data on the ECI website resulted from pure error, why was it coded? § If the data resulted from incompetence, is the result data not up in the same file for the same reason? § If the data resulted from incompetence why has the CandidateAC spreadsheet that contained the data been pulled off the website on July 15th? § What is the field “DECODE(FINALISED,'YES','FINALISED',)” in these files and why does it change over time? Can you Confirm if Your Vote Counted? § Besides a faith in the honesty of officials, integrity of the process and independence of the ECI, is there any other way to establish transparency and trust in an Election conducted by the ECI? § Is there any test, audit that can certify that votes polled are those polled by the people and not a Trojan Horse or a machine? Like a reverse Turing Test, aDemocracy Test? § How can votes be certified by the ECI to be a true vote of the people of India? § Is there any mechanism by which the voters can go back and ensure that their vote is still counted? Something similar to going back to the bank and checking that the money is still accounted for? § Is the source code of the entire electronic machinery "open-source"? Why not? § If Electronic Voting Machines have been banned across the countries for their inability to distinguish between human and machine votes, why are they used in India? § What is Election Reform needed to ensure Democracy is not only practiced and enhanced but is also auditable? The ECI have uploaded the individual vote data in a different file at a different location. You can compare the data in this file with the votes polled available on the 6th and 11th of May or look at the consolidated data file with some analysis assuming that the "votes polled" data in the earlier versions was not coded. Unfortunately, the ECI is using several different locations and different formats to convey election results: § An analysis link that has results § A results page on a different url: eciresults.nic.in This itself is raising questions about the information- Which is the real site? Which is the real data? What is the real ECI source? Why are many locations and formats needed? If this is a Mistake, Why No Clarifications from the ECI? On the 6th of May we had asked the ECI to clarify the following: "The queries are returning coded names. The spreadsheet is having votes polled for each candidate- Is this test data, a wrong file or actual votes polled?" We have not yet heard from the ECI so we have sent a reminder on the 31st of May 2009 we have asked the ECI the following: "Can you kindly indicate what the data in the CandidateAC downloaded from http://eci.nic.in/candidateinfo/frmcandidate.aspx file between the 6th and 15th is? Why is the Final votes polled data not uploaded till date at this location? When do you plan to upload it?" On the 7th of July 2009 we have sent another more detailed request for clarification. We have not yet heard from the ECI. Source: Nalapatsaraph http://government.wikia.com/wiki/2009_Lok_Sabha_Data_Questions#Tracking_the_Elections_2009 HC issues notice on petition alleging EVM tampering KalingaTimes Correspondent Justice Indrajit Mohanty issued notice to the respondents after hearing submissions made by Bidyadhar Mishra, counsel for the petitioner. The Court fixed August 7 as the next date of hearing on the petition. In his petition filed on June 29, Jena has prayed to the Court to declare the election of Biju Janata Dal nominee Bijay Kumar Mohanty as null and void. Jena had lost to Mohanty from the Bhubaneswar Central Assembly seat. The petitioner has alleged that EVMs were not trustworthy as the voter had no opportunity to see that the vote recorded by him had in fact been recorded in favour of the candidate for whom he voted. Jena submitted that before actual voting starts and votes are recorded and the data is transferred to a Central repository for tallying, it involves different people gaining access to the machine installing parallel program under another password in the voting machine that would, before voters arrived at the polling stations, can ensure a premeditated poll outcome. The petitioner further alleged in the petition that no mock poll was conducted before the beginning of polling. One of the mandatory requirements was that the presiding officers are duty bound to conduct a mock poll before commencement of polling, he submitted. After the voting was conducted on April 23, the EVMs used in the poll had been kept in the custody of state police for three days and Central forces were given the charge of guarding the machines only after the petitioner raised the issue before the authorities concerned, according to the petition. Jena also alleged in the petition that he was not given the exact percentage of votes polled in the constituency for three days. The petition has also alleged that the rules pertaining to procurement of EVMs, commissioning of the same and dispatching of the machines to booths were violated by the officials who were in charge of the polls. EVMs row: PIL in SC seeks to quash Lok Sabha poll results http://dailypioneer.com/189083/EVMs-row-PIL-in-SC-seeks-to-quash-Lok-Sabha-poll-results.html EVMs: Are they giving us right verdicts? Statesman News Service BHUBANESWAR, 12 JULY: The raging debate over manipulation of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) across the country establishes the fact that people do not trust the machine, and more so, in a backward state like Orissa. Hence and until and unless there is public acceptance one should not impose it said speakers at a seminar organised by Orissa Jan Sammelan here today. Majority of the speakers and the audience firmly believed that EVMs are not tamper proof. In fact when Mr Rabi Das, convener of the Sammelan, tried to sum up saying the legitimacy of the 2009 elections is not being questioned, several people in the audience strongly objected and grilled him. Mr P Satpathy, who had contested the Assembly elections as an Independent candidate said he and eight of his family members had cast vote in one booth where he secured only four votes. I had at least 800 committed workers and I got over 469 votes, he submitted questioning the credibility of the machines. “It is not jan mata but jantra mata and it is manipulated,” he alleged. Mr Satpathy pointed out that the BJP candidates in a particular region including the three from Bhubaneswar had secured 11,000 votes and all Independent candidates 500 votes. It was as if people had decided a ceiling on the number of votes. The vast difference between results of elections held in the first phase and the second phase, the unprecedented victory margin in Assembly constituencies were other aspects raised in the seminar to raise doubts. While Mr Satpathy drew loud cheers from the audience, former chief secretary Mr Rabinarayan Das suggested that a committee of experts need to probe into the use and functioning of EVMs. Mr Das felt it would be proper to impose President Rule six months prior to elections to prevent the party in power from influencing officers through postings and making populist announcements. He cited instances of how officers shunted out by the Election Commission of India were re-posted as soon as elections were over. If a public servant is found unfit by the Commission how is it that he or she gets the same post after election, he questioned. Letters and articles written by experts including former chief secretary, Mr Umesh Saigal, former Union minister Mr Subramanium Swamy on tampering of EVMs were read out to the audience. Software expert, Mr LN Panda deliberated on the configuration of the machine and said it was possible to introduce an additional programme or virus to manipulate EVMs. The existing programme cannot be changed or tampered but certainly a virus or additional programme can be introduced in the machine. Theoretically, one can manipulate EVMs and it is not tamper proof, he said. Professor P Singh, a physicist, felt that people of the country, given its literacy level and ignorance were not ready to accept a EVM. “Public acceptance is sovereign and hence it should be discarded. Why should any self respecting voter go to the booth and confront a machine of which he or she knows nothing at all. Why should he or she ask the officials present in the booth as to what he should do,” questioned the professor. It was pointed out that some of the defeated candidates had already moved the Orissa High Court in this regard. http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=9&theme=&usrsess=1&id=260707 EVMs tampered: Case in Bombay High Court HC's notice to Praful Patel on poll petition Created on : 07/11/2009 12:33:37 PM (NORMAL ) Nagpur,
Jul 11 (UNI) Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court has issued a notice to Civil
Aviation Minister Praful Patel on a petition challenging his election from
Bhandara-Gondia Lok Sabha constituency recently. http://www.uniindia.com/unilive\unisite.nsf/All/2E29CAD9814BF7DE652575F00026F6F1 Defeated Patle to file election petition Ramu Bhagwat, TNN 24 June 2009, 04:09am IST NAGPUR: Yet to come out of the shock of
his defeat in the recent Lok Sabha elections from Bhandara-Gondia constituency,
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Shishupal Patle is now contemplating
filing an election petition. Patle, who had defeated Nationalist Congress Party
stalwart Praful Patel in the 2004 polls, was not just defeated by the same
rival by a whopping margin of over 2.5 lakh votes this time, but came third in
the poll race as Congress rebel came in second. EVM tampering: Video demonstration http://www.kothaga.com/GetVideo.aspx?VideoID=qf9rYz2ihTQ&tag=custom&TYPE=Y EVMs can be tampered says JCV (Telugu) Polling should be transparent to the voter. There should be evidence to the voter to ensure that his vote has been correctly recorded. http://www.kothaga.com/GetVideo.aspx?VideoID=j9BnqMeuT6g&tag=custom&TYPE=Y EVM tampering proved on TV (Telugu, ETV 2) Forum of Peoples Awarenss on vulnerabilities of EVMs – Jana Chaitanya Vedika Display: 9 votes polled but 17 shown as recorded by tampering EVM. Demonstration to show the achievement of desired results by tampering EVM. Impossible to detect a Trojan used. Finding malfunctioning in chips is virtually impossible unless a detailed review is done before chip is damaged. EVM can be attached a printer to assure the voter that his vote has been correctly recorded by issuing an assurance printout. PIL filed in SC seeking replacement of EVMs New Delhi (PTI): Amidst questions being raised on the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines, an NGO has approached the Supreme Court seeking it to direct the Election Commission to replace it with a tamper proof system. The PIL, filed by Jana Chaitanya Vedika, contended that there was an urgent need to replace EVMs as there was possibility of it being tampered and manipulated. "Several experts and election watch groups have found that EVM could be manipulated. They have analysed the electronics results in several constituencies which indicate that there is something drastically wrong with the EVMs," the petition filed by V V Rao, Vice President of the NGO said. "The existing EVMs are vulnerable and should not be used for any elections till the time the machines are made tamper proof," the petition said. http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200907102223.htm Political distrust of voting machines reaches apex court New Delhi, July 10
The growing political distrust against the electronic voting machines Friday reached the Supreme Court with a lawsuit demanding formation of an expert panel to examine functioning of the machines and to ascertain whether they are tamper-proof.
Two officials of Hyderabad-based Election Watch Group and two electronic engineers jointly moved the apex court, contending that it is entirely possible to tamper with the software of the machine and rig theelection.
The lawsuit sought formation of the panel to examine trustworthiness of EVMs in the poll process and to decide if it needs to be improved or altogether abandoned in favour of the old ballot papers.
Election Watch officials V.V. Rao and engineers A. Kankipati and Y. Vasaya contended in their lawsuit that "several experts and election watch groups and individuals, who have been monitoring the electionprocess, have found that EVM could be manipulated and tampered."
"They have analysed the results in several constituencies, which indicate that there is something drastically wrong with the EVMs," the petitioners claimed.
The lawsuit filed through counsel Sanjay Parekh also raised the issue of secrecy of electors' vote, saying the EVMs are not able to even protect the secrecy of voters and the votes cast by them.
Parekh is likely to apprise the court early next week of his lawsuit and seek its early hearing.
The lawsuit claimed that even the two expert panels appointed by the Election Commission in 1990 and 2005 to examine the trustworthiness of EVMs had indicated that there were several lacunae in their functioning and they need rectification.
"These factors are cumulatively creating a serious situation for sustaining a democracy based on free and fair election," said the lawsuit.
"The Election Commission of India has a constitutional obligation to ensure that the elections are conducted in free and fair manner," said the petition.
The petition has been filed in the wake of several political leaders belonging to rival camps raising doubts over the trustworthiness of EVMs and demanding their substitution by the good old ballot papers. Last updated on Jul 10th, 2009 at 17:59 pm IST --IANS
http://www.prokerala.com/news/articles/a63876.html EVM rigging: Saigal rebuts Election Commissioner By janamejayan 8 July 2009 From Our Delhi Bureau NEW DELHI: Former Delhi Chief Secretary Omesh Saigal, whose evidence-based proof of rigging by manipulating the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) prompted Opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani to call for return to ballot papers, on Tuesday rebutted Election Commissioner S Y Quarashi’s claim EVMs are tamper proof. In a strong-worded letter to Quarashi, he also refuted his claim that the Election Commission has not ordered any probe into his charge that EVMs are vulnerable to be manipulated. Saigal said after his presentation to Chief Election
Commissioner Navin Chawla on dangers of fraud on EVMs, The retired IAS officer said he has sent the necessary supporting documents to the official for further probe. Saigal also drew Quarashi’s attention to reports submitted by Prof Indiresan, in 1990 and in 2006, specifically warning the EC about possibility of fraud in EVMs, and the need for a pre and post election audit. This was, Saigal said, exactly what he had also specifically requested in his earlier communication to the CEC. He pointed out that the EVMs are so vulnerable that even a voter can set them on the day of polling by pressing keys in a certain order to record votes in favour of a particular candidate irrespective of whichever keys subsequent voters press. http://janamejayan.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/evm-rigging-saigal-rebuts-election-commissioner/ EVMs: ‘dogla’ software can rig them ‘Rigging is possible through EVMs’ A day after Election Commission rejected his claim that Electronic Voting Machines are not tamper-proof, former bureaucrat Omesh Saigal on Tuesday stuck to his charge that a particular software can be used to rig the polls. http://birlaa.com/news/rigging-is-possible-through-evms/310070
Ex-bureaucrat sticks to claim, says rigging possible through EVMs
New Delhi, July 07: A day after Election
Commission rejected his claim that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are not
tamper-proof, former bureaucrat Omesh Saigal today stuck to his charge that a
particular software can
be used to rig the polls. http://www.zeenews.com/news545297.html Naidu on a mission, to prove votes can be tampered with HYDERABAD, 7 JULY: In a significant development, TDP president Mr N Chandrababu Naidu, has prepared a software which if deployed in Electronic Voting Machines, can be used to tamper with the ballots. He did so to proves that the recently held elections were heavily rigged. Mr Naidu is convinced that he lost the elections as EVMs were tampered with. He told aides that chief minister Dr YS Rajashekar Reddy retained power as he tampered EVMs with fraudulent software, sources said. Mr Naidu had the software developed by software professionals who are also supporters of the party. According to the software: if your choice of contestant is A and you accordingly press the EVM button, the vote will be registered against pre-determined contestant D. The software can be similarly tweaked in favour or against any of the contestants. From June last week, Mr Naidu has been on the job of making such software. He is being assisted by TDP IT in-charge Mr Srinivas, who was introduced into the party by Sujana group chairman~ Mr S Chowdhury and Mr Jayram Reddy ~ former secretary, AP State Council of Higher Education. Both of them supervised the TDP’s call centre where they claim to have got the feedback from voters that “their votes landed elsewhere”. Sources substantiated this argument by referring to the contest in Nellimerla Assembly segment in Vizianagaram district. It so happened, that during counting, TDP candidate Mr B Narayanaswamy Naidu found that in villages where he had a strong support, he either got nominal majorities or was trailing behind. He lost to the Congress by 597 votes and has filed a case in Court. Meanwhile Mr Naidu sent a brief explaination to various political leaders including former MP Mr K Ramamohan Rao, MLAs Mr Revanth Reddy and Mr P Keshav saying that EVMs can be tampered. Mr Naidu’s aim to prove that EVMs are not tamperproof gathered momentum after former Delhi chief secretary Mr O Saigal, last week gave a presentation to Chief Election Commissioner Mr Naveen Chawla that a certain code ensures that every fifth vote cast is registered against a pre-determined contestant. ;Stanley Theodore http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=2&theme=&usrsess=1&id=260256 Declare EVMs unconstitutional
This is a clinching argument, set forth by Rajeev. On this ground alone, SC can declare use of EVMs unconstitutional.
namaskaram. kalyanaraman
On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 7:27 AM, Rajeev Srinivasan <rajeev.srinivasan@gmail.com> wrote: jul 6th,
2009 Debate When people are suspicious about the correct functioning of EVMs, which posed a danger to the democracy and the rights of the citizens, our keenness to continue with the system is deplorable. Should we not know that our votes are correctly recorded by the EVM? The issue
of rigging of election by Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) has been raised in
different states of the country. In Orissa, all the political parties, except
the ruling BJD, are accusing the latter of tampering with EVMs, which crowned
them with unexpected victory. Before discussing the large scale rigging by EVMs
in Orissa assembly election, I think it appropriate to deal with the important
question whether the Electronic Voting Machines are tamper-proof? If there is
any doubt in its integrity, what compels us to take recourse to this method
instead of ballots papers. http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=299&page=15 EVMs tampered: ECI defends. IAS man shows how.
EC denies ordering probe into EVM ‘malfunctioning’ Chennai edition, 6 July 2009
|
Professor Edward Felten, a long-time observer of electronic voting systems also commented:
Does secrecy over-ride accountability of a functionary under the constitution? EVM is a mystery wrapped in electronics which an ordinary voter has reason to mistrust.
What is the objective of an election? Counting peoples' will. If the count is flawed, the democracy is rendered meaningless by the EC.
Paper trail is needed to make the EC accountable and to audit the accuracy of the count by the machine.
k
EVMs are tamper-proof: Election Commission
STAFF WRITER 19:0 HRS IST
Mumbai, Aug 13 (PTI) In the backdrop of allegations by certain political parties that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) could be hacked, the Election Commission today said EVMs were and are tamper proof.
"In the view of the Election Commission, EVMs were and are tamper proof. Nobody has been able to demonstrate that they can be tampered with," Chief Election Commissioner Naveen Chawla told reporters here.
On the demand by some parties for paper printouts of ballots, Chawla said "we believe a paper trail would foil the essence of democracy, which is secrecy of individual ballot, and it would be seriously compromised."
"The whole purpose of democracy is that individuals' preference must be secret and it is the whole pillar of free, fair and transparent election process," he said.
http://www.ptinews.com/news/228283_EVMs-are-tamper-proof--Election-Commission
