Case for electronic voting machines

Case for electronic voting machines

Suspicions about EVMs are ill-founded. First, the Indian EVM, unlike the machines used in Europe, is not programmable. Besides, a large number would have to be manipulated to impact a result, and this cannot escape detection, .

Once sealed, the EVM is tamper-proof.

The recent elections in the UK showed how much better our system of elections is compared to theirs. Thousands of voters in London, Manchester and Birmingham could not vote because there were not enough ballot papers. In India, we use the electronic voting machine (EVM) which has no such problem — it needs no ballot papers.

Paper ballots are expensive. If a hundred per cent of ballots are printed, 30-40 per cent of them will not be used at all. That is a colossal waste of money. In these days of ecological concern, it is also a matter of distress that millions of trees would have been cut needlessly.

Hence, election commissions make a value judgement; they print less than 100 per cent, but that can cause trouble — like it has in the UK. As EVMs need no paper ballots, there is no such problem. There is no wastage of paper. EVMs have one more advantage — no wasted ballots due to invalid votes, which created considerable distress when President Bush won the first time.

TAMPERING CUMBERSOME

Peculiarly enough, there have been persistent and determined efforts to discredit EVMs at home, at any rate in Andhra Pradesh. A determined group has been attacking the EVM as unreliable on the ground it does not have what is called a “paper trail”. A few weeks ago, they went to the extent of having a two-hour demonstration on a TV station to show how EVMs could be compromised.

In their demonstration, the critics stole a machine (apparently from Maharashtra) and replaced the display in such a manner that it showed results that were different from the polls cast. To a layperson, the demonstration was quite impressive but, actually, it had several faults.

One, the results are not taken from the display but from the memory inside. Hence, the results that would be printed out would not be affected at all. Two, in any general election, several lakh EVMs are used. Even if a select 10 per cent of them are manipulated, something like 70,000-80,000 machines will have to be attacked.

As the EVM is not programmable, the chip itself will have to be changed — which will leave marks of its own. It is also expensive, very much so. Three, machines are allotted at random. Unless all machines are manipulated, the manipulator is not sure whether the machines he tampers with will actually go to the desired constituency or not. Four, tens of thousands of manipulators have to be trained because the manipulation has to be done at each polling booth and after what is called a “mock poll” is completed.

What is a mock poll? Before the EVM is sealed, representatives of all candidates are invited to cast votes in any manner they decide. The results are then checked to see that they are correct. Only when they all certify that the machine is performing as desired, is the EVM sealed for use. Once sealed, the EVM is tamper-proof — provided the machine itself is not altered.

The mock poll is a very important check: It ensures the machine is working perfectly before the election starts. Hence, tampering would have to be done after the machine is sealed and in the presence of a number of competing agents of various political parties. That may still be done by changing the system in such a manner that it gets Bluetooth capability, or the ability to receive radio signals which can alter the functioning of the system. Theoretically, that is possible, but fortunately not in practice.

It is not practical for several reasons. The first problem is the expense; it will cost several hundred crores of rupees. The second one is collusion; it requires collusion from a hundreds of district officials to access and change the machines. The third is the secrecy; if one or two machines are compromised that may be kept secret, but if hundreds of thousands of them have to be altered, that is impossible. Fourth, a fear has been expressed that the government in power can issue instructions to the manufacturers to change the system. Just imagine what the consequence would be, if this instruction is leaked out, and leaked out it will be — because the manufacturing process requires hundreds of people.

INDIAN EVM's ADVANTAGES

A forceful point made by the critics is that EVMs have been banned in Germany, the Netherlands and in several other countries. What they fail to understand or notice is that the machines used there were programmable. Their working could be changed but that is not possible in the Indian machine — it is only a simple calculator.

In the good (bad) old days thousands of votes could be stuffed in half an hour and marauding parties could go from booth to booth capturing them by sheer force. With the EVMs, no more than five votes can be cast in a minute. Hence, the productivity of the booth capturers is reduced 20-30 times. No party has found it worthwhile to employ such people.

Two things protect the Indian EVMs: One, their simplicity; two their numbers. Once, I asked a former cabinet minister about the EVMs. He was categorical — they cannot be tampered. Apparently, he had tried and failed.

No machine is perfect; every machine can be bugged. That is not the issue. The real issue is whether such a change is sustainable. The number of EVMs is so large that not enough of them can be altered without detection. That is why the EVMs are safe.