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Electronic voting in India

March 31, 2023

Electronic voting is the standard means of conducting elections using Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in India.[1][2] The system was developed and tested by the state-owned Electronics Corporation of India and Bharat Electronics in the 1990s. They were introduced in Indian elections between 1998 and 2001, in a phased manner. Prior to the introduction of electronic voting, India used paper ballots and manual counting. The paper ballots method was widely criticised because of fraudulent voting and booth capturing, where party loyalists captured booths and stuffed them with pre-filled fake ballots. The printed paper ballots were also more expensive, requiring substantial post-voting resources to count hundreds of millions of individual ballots.[2][1] Embedded EVM features such as "electronically limiting the rate of casting votes to five per minute",[1] a security "lock-close" feature, an electronic database of "voting signatures and thumb impressions" to confirm the identity of the voter, conducting elections in phases over several weeks while deploying extensive security personnel at each booth[1] have helped reduce electoral fraud and abuse, eliminate booth capturing and create more competitive and fairer elections.[3][2] Indian EVMs are stand-alone machines built with once write, read-only memory.[4] The EVMs are produced with secure manufacturing practices, and by design, are self-contained, battery-powered and lack any networking capability. They do not have any wireless or wired internet components and interface.[5] The M3 version of the EVMs includes the VVPAT system.[4]

VVPAT used with Indian electronic voting machines in Indian Elections
Control unit in EVM
Electionic Voting Machine India ballot Unit

In recent elections, various opposition parties have alleged faulty EVMs after they failed to defeat the incumbent.[6][7] After rulings of Delhi High Court, the Supreme Court of India in 2011 directed the Election Commission to include a paper trail as well to help confirm the reliable operation of EVMs.[7][8] The Election Commission developed EVMs with voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) system between 2012 and 2013. The system was tried on a pilot basis in the 2014 Indian general election.[9][10] EVMs and accompanying Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) are now used in every assembly and general election in India and a small percentage of the VVPATs are verified.[11][12][13] On 9 April 2019, Supreme Court of India ordered the Election Commission of India to use VVPAT paper trail system in every assembly constituency but verify only about 2% of the EVMs i.e., 5 polling stations per constituency[13] before certifying the final results. The Election Commission of India has acted under this order and deployed VVPAT verification for 20,625 EVMs in the 2019 Indian general election.[14][15][16]

The Election Commission of India states that their machines, system checks, safeguard procedures, and election protocols are "fully tamper-proof". A team led by Vemuri Hari Prasad of NetIndia Private Limited has shown that if criminals get physical possession of the EVMs before the voting, they can change the hardware inside and thus manipulate the results.[17] The Prasad team recommended a VVPAT paper trail system for verification.[17] The Election Commission states that along with VVPAT method, immediately prior to the election day, a sample number of votes for each political party nominee is entered into each machine, in the presence of polling agents. At the end of this sample trial run, the votes counted and matched with the entered sample votes, to ensure that the machine's hardware has not been tampered with, it is operating reliably and that there were no hidden votes pre-recorded in each machine.[18] Machines that yield a faulty result have been replaced to ensure a reliable electoral process.[19][20]

History

India used paper ballots till the 1990s. The sheer scale of the Indian elections with more than half a billion people eligible to vote, combined with election-related criminal activity, led Indian election authority and high courts to transition to electronic voting.[2][21] According to Arvind Verma – a professor of Criminal Justice with a focus on South Asia, Indian elections have been marked by criminal fraud and ballot tampering since the 1950s. The first major election with large scale organized booth capturing were observed in 1957.[21] The journalist Prem Shankar Jha, states Milan Vaishnav, documented the booth capturing activity by Congress party leaders, and the opposition parties soon resorted to the same fraudulent activity in the 1960s.[22] A booth-capture was the phenomenon where party loyalists, criminal gangs and musclemen entered the booth with force in villages and remote areas, and stuffed the ballot boxes with pre-filled fake paper ballots.[23][24] This problem grew between the 1950s and 1980s and became a serious and large scale problem in states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar,[2][21] later spreading to Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal accompanied with election day violence.[25] Another logistical problem was the printing of paper ballots, transporting and safely storing them, and physically counting hundreds of millions of votes.[1][21]

The Election Commission of India, led by T.N. Seshan, sought a solution by developing Electronic voting machines in the 1990s.[21][26] These devices were designed to prevent fraud by limiting how fast new votes can be entered into the electronic machine.[21] By limiting the rate of vote entered every minute to five, the Commission aimed to increase the time required to cast fake ballots, therefore, allow the security forces to intervene in cooperation with the volunteers of the competing political parties and the media.[2][21][3]

The Commission introduced other features such as EVM initialization procedures just before the elections.[5] Officials tested each machine prior to the start of voting to confirm its reliable operation in the front of independent polling agents. They added a security lock “close” button which saved the votes already cast in the device's permanent memory but disabled the device's ability to accept additional votes in the case of any attempt to open the unit or tamper.[2][18] The Commission decided to conduct the elections over several weeks in order to move and post a large number of security forces at each booth. On the day of voting, the ballots were also locked and then saved in a secure location under the watch of state security and local volunteer citizens. Additionally, the Election Commission also created a database of thumb impressions and electronic voting signatures, open to inspection by polling agent volunteers and outside observers.[2] The EVMs-based system at each booth matches the voter with a registered card with this electronic database in order to ensure that a voter cannot cast a ballot more than once.[2][3] According to Debnath and other scholars, these efforts of the Election Commission of India – developed in consultations with the Indian courts, experts and volunteer feedback from different political parties – have reduced electoral fraud in India and made the elections fairer and more competitive.[3]

EVM and Indian judiciary

EVM and electronic voting have been the subject of numerous court cases in Indian courts including the Supreme Court of India. The first case was filed in the 1980s even before EVMs were used in any election. The AC Jose vs. Sivan Pillai case was a case seeking a stay order on the use of EVMs for Kerala election.[27] The case was reviewed by the Supreme Court. It ruled on March 5, 1984, that the extant laws of India – in particular, Sections 59–61 of the Representation of People Act 1951 – specified paper ballots and it, therefore, forbade the use of any other technology including electronic voting. And it was used in 1982 in Kerala for a limited number of polling stations. The EVMs were first time used on an experimental basis in selected constituencies of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi. The Court stated that the use of an alternate technology would require the Indian parliament to amend the law.[27]

The parliament of India amended the Representation of People Act in December 1988. Section 61A of the amended law empowered the Election Commission to deploy voting machines instead of paper ballots. The amended law became effective from March 15, 1989.[27] The use of EVMs, their reliability and speculations about fraud through the use of EVMs have been the subject of many lawsuits before state high courts and the Supreme Court of India. These courts have either dismissed the cases as frivolous or ruled in the favor of the Election Commission and the EVMs.[28] Of these, in the 2002 ruling on the J. Jayalalithaa and Ors vs. Election Commission of India case, the Supreme Court of India stated that the use of EVMs in elections was constitutionally valid.[28][29]

Regarding the mismatch of EVM data, an election research organization Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India on 15 November 2019 asking for a court order directing the Election Commission of India to conduct actual and accurate reconciliation of (votes) data before the declaration of the final result of any election. ADR also made an appeal for an investigation into all discrepancies in the data related to the 2019 Lok Sabha election results.[30]

Electronic voting

The Indian electronic voting machine (EVM) were developed in 1989 by Election Commission of India in collaboration with Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited. The Industrial designers of the EVMs were faculty members at the Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay. The EVMs were first used in 1982 in the by-election to North Paravur Assembly Constituency in Kerala for a limited number of polling stations.[31] The EVMs were first time used on an experimental basis in selected constituencies of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi. The EVMs were used first time in the general election (entire state) to the assembly of Goa in 1999. In 2003, all by-elections and state elections were held using EVMs, encouraged by this election commission decided to use only EVMs for Lok Sabha elections in 2004.

Design and technology

 
Ballot Unit (left), control unit (right)

The EVM was designed by two professors of IIT Bombay, A.G. Rao and Ravi Poovaiah.[32] An EVM consists of two units, a control unit, and the balloting unit.[33] The two units are joined by a five-meter cable. Balloting unit facilitates voting by a voter via labeled buttons while the control unit controls the ballot units, stores voting counts and displays the results on 7 segment LED displays. The controller used in EVMs has its operating program etched permanently in silicon at the time of manufacturing by the manufacturer. No one (including the manufacturer) can change the program once the controller is manufactured. The control unit is operated by one of the polling booth officers, while the balloting unit is operated by the voter in privacy. The officer confirms the voter's identification then electronically activates the ballot unit to accept a new vote. Once the voter enters the vote, the balloting unit displays the vote to the voter, records it in its memory. A "close" command issued from the control unit by the polling booth officer registers the vote, relocks the unit to prevent multiple votes. The process is repeated when the next voter with a new voter ID arrives before the polling booth officer.[33]

EVMs are powered by an ordinary 6 volt alkaline battery[34] manufactured by Bharat Electronics Limited, Bangalore and Electronics Corporation of India Limited, Hyderabad. This design enables the use of EVMs throughout the country without interruptions because several parts of India do not have the power supply and/or erratic power supply. The two units cannot work without each other. After a poll closes on a particular election day, the units are separated and the control units moved and stored separately in locked and guarded premises.[33]

Both units have numerous tamper-proof protocols. Their hardware, by design, can only be programmed once at the time of their manufacture and they cannot be reprogrammed.[35][5] They do not have any wireless communication components inside, nor any internet interface and related hardware.[35] The balloting unit has an internal real-time clock and a protocol by which it records every input-output event with a timestamp whenever they are connected to a battery pack.[35] The designers intentionally opted for battery power, to prevent the possibility that the power cables might be used to interfere with the reliable functioning of an EVM.[35]

An EVM can record a maximum of 3840 (now 2000) votes and can cater to a maximum of 64 candidates. There is provision for 16 candidates in a single balloting unit and up to a maximum of 4 balloting units with 64 candidate names and the respective party symbols can be connected in parallel to the control unit.[33] If there are more than 64 candidates, the conventional ballot paper/box method of polling is deployed by the Election Commission.[33] After a 2013 upgrade, an Indian EVM can cater to a maximum of 384 candidates plus "None Of The Above" option (NOTA).[4]

The current electronic voting machines in India are the M3 version with VVPAT capability, the older versions being M1 and M2. They are built and encoded with once-write software (read-only masked memory) at the state-owned and high-security premises of the Bharat Electronics Limited and the Electronics Corporation of India Limited.[4][36] The inventory of election EVMs is securely tracked by the Election Commission of India on a real-time basis with EVM Tracking Software (ETS). This system tracks its digital verification identity and physical presence. The M3 EVMs has embedded hardware and software that enables only a particular control unit to work with a particular voting unit issued by the Election Commission, as another layer of tamper-proofing. Additional means of tamper proofing the machines include several layers of seals. Indian EVMs are stand-alone non-networked machines.[37][38]

Procedure to use

The control unit is with the presiding officer or a polling officer and the balloting Unit is placed inside the voting compartment. The balloting unit presents the voter with blue buttons (momentary switch) horizontally labeled with corresponding party symbol and candidate names. The Control Unit, on the other hand, provides the officer-in-charge with a "Ballot" marked button to proceed to the next voter, instead of issuing a ballot paper to them. This activates the ballot unit for a single vote from the next voter in the queue. The voter has to cast his vote by once pressing the blue button on the balloting unit against the candidate and symbol of his choice.

As soon as the last voter has voted, the Polling Officer-in-charge of the Control Unit will press the 'Close' Button. Thereafter, the EVM will not accept any votes. Further, after the close of the poll, the Balloting Unit is disconnected from the Control Unit and kept separately. Votes can be recorded only through the Balloting Unit. Again the Presiding officer, at the close of the poll, will hand over to each polling agent present an account of votes recorded. At the time of counting of votes, the total will be tallied with this account and if there is any discrepancy, this will be pointed out by the Counting Agents. During the counting of votes, the results are displayed by pressing the 'Result' button. There are two safeguards to prevent the 'Result' button from being pressed before the counting of votes officially begins. (a) This button cannot be pressed till the 'Close' button is pressed by the Polling Officer-in-charge at the end of the voting process in the polling booth. (b) This button is hidden and sealed; this can be broken only at the counting center in the presence of a designated office.

Benefits

The cost per EVM was ₹5,500 (equivalent to ₹50,000 or US$630 in 2020) at the time the machines were purchased in 1989–90. The cost was estimated to be ₹10,500 (equivalent to ₹14,000 or US$180 in 2020) per unit as per an additional order issued in 2014.[39] Even though the initial investment was heavy, it has since been expected to save costs of production and printing of crores of ballot papers, their transportation and storage, substantial reduction in the counting staff and the remuneration paid to them. For each national election, it is estimated that about 10,000 tonnes of the ballot paper is saved. EVMs are easier to transport compared to ballot boxes as they are lighter, more portable, and come with polypropylene carrying cases. Vote counting is also faster. In places where illiteracy is a factor, illiterate people find EVMs easier than ballot paper system. Bogus voting is greatly reduced as the vote is recorded only once. The unit can store the result in its memory before it is erased manually. The battery is required only to activate the EVMs at the time of polling and counting and as soon as the polling is over, the battery can be switched off. The shelf life of Indian EVMs is estimated at 15 years.[40]

Limitations

Main article: Totaliser

A candidate can know how many people from a polling station voted for them. This is a significant issue particularly if lop-sided votes for/against a candidate are cast in individual polling stations and the winning candidate might show favoritism or hold a grudge on specific areas. The Election Commission of India has stated that the manufacturers of the EVMs have developed a Totaliser unit which can connect several balloting units and would display only the overall results from an Assembly or a Lok Sabha constituency instead of votes from individual polling stations.[41][42]

Security issues

An international conference on the Indian EVMs and their tamperability was held under the chairmanship of Subramanian Swamy, President of the Janata Party and former Union Cabinet Minister for Law, Commerce, and Justice at Chennai on 13 February 2010. The conclusion was that the Election Commission of India was shirking its responsibility on the transparency in the working of the EVMs.[43] In April 2010, an independent security analysis was released by a research team led by Hari K. Prasad, Rop Gonggrijp, and Alex Halderman.[17]

In order to mitigate these threats, the researchers suggest moving to a voting system that provides greater transparency, such as paper ballots, precinct count optical scan, or a voter verified paper audit trail, since, in any of these systems, skeptical voters could, in principle, observe the physical counting process to gain confidence that the outcome is fair.[44][45][46]

Manufacturers of Electronic Voting Machines, namely Electronics Corporation of India Limited, Hyderabad and Bharat Electronics Limited, Bengaluru have said that EVMs are unhackable and tamper-proof as programming for EVMs is done at a secure manufacturing facility in ECIL and BEL (where operations are logged electronically) and not with chip manufacturers.[35] Control and ballot units in EVMs and VVPATs have an anti-tamper mechanism by which they become non-operational if it is illegally opened. EVMs are standalone machines, have no radio frequency transmission device features, operate on battery packs and cannot be reprogrammed. The Control Unit of EVMs has a real-time clock that logs every event on its right from the time it was switched on. The anti-tamper mechanism in the machine can detect even 100-millisecond variations.

On 25 July 2011, responding to a PIL (Writ Petition (Civil) No. 312 of 2011), Supreme Court of India asked EC to consider request to modify EVMs and respond within three months. The petitioner Rajendra Satyanarayan Gilda had alleged that EC has failed to take any decision despite his repeated representation. The petitioner suggested that the EVMs should be modified to give a slip printed with the symbol of the party in whose favour the voter cast his ballot.[7][47][48][49]

On 17 January 2012, Delhi High Court in its ruling on Dr. Subramanian Swamy's Writ Petition (Writ Petition (Civil) No. 11879 of 2009) challenging the use of EVMs in the present form said that EVMs are not "tamper-proof". Further, it said that it is "difficult" to issue any directions to the EC in this regard. However, the court added that the EC should itself hold wider consultations with the executive, political parties and other stake holders on the matter.[50][51]

Swamy appealed against Delhi High Court's refusal to order a VVPAT system in Supreme Court. On 27 September 2012, Election Commission's advocate Ashok Desai submitted to a Supreme Court bench of Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi that field trial for the VVPAT system is in progress and that a status report will be submitted by early January 2013. Desai said that on pressing of each vote, a paper receipt will be printed, which will be visible to the voters inside a glass but cannot be taken out of the machine. Dr. Swamy said that the new system was acceptable to him.

The Supreme Court posted the matter for further hearing to 22 January 2013[52][53] and on 8 October 2013, it delivered a verdict, that the Election Commission of India will use VVPAT.[54]

Another similar writ petition filed by the Asom Gana Parishad is still pending before the Gauhati High Court.[55]

2019 allegations

Syed Shuja, an expert on EVMs as claimed by India Today,[56] has alleged that Indian EVMs can be hacked and also made serious allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP-led government at the Centre, Shuja addressed a press conference in London via video conferencing and demonstrated hacking of the EVM. The cyber expert also claimed that late minister Gopinath Munde, who died in June 2014, was allegedly murdered because he was about to expose his own government over the hackings.[57] Shuja appeared from a remote location using Skype in January 2019 for a press conference organized by the Indian Journalists’ Association[58] and the London-based Foreign Press Association.[59] He alleged that the EVM units can be wirelessly tampered with, and have been tampered with the help of Reliance Communications. He also made allegations of many murders and other criminal activity associated with EVMs tampering, allegations he could not substantiate nor did he present any evidence for his allegations before journalists gathered in London for the Shuja press interview.[60]

The possibility of EVM tampering as described by Shuja have been rejected by the Election Commission of India.[56] The Commission stated that the Indian EVMs do not contain any wireless chips and related communication components.[60] The Election Commission reiterated that their official EVMs are manufactured in India under very strict supervisory and security conditions and there are "rigorous Standard Operating Procedures meticulously observed at all stages under the supervision of a Committee of eminent technical experts constituted way back in 2010".[56] The commission has charged Shuja under Section 505(1)(b) of the Indian Penal Code (titled "Punishment for Statements Conducing to Public Mischief") by lodging a First Information Report against him with the Delhi Police.[61] The Bharatiya Janata Party attributed this claim to the opposing Indian National Congress as an attempt by them to manipulate the electorate with fake news before forthcoming elections.[62]

In January 2019, the London-based press conference organizer stated, "The Foreign Press Association strongly disassociates itself with any claims made by the speaker Syed Shuja during the #IJA event [about Indian EVMs and related matters] in London yesterday. Not one of the masked speaker’s accusations has so far been corroborated."[59] The India Today called Shuja's allegations as "sensationalism without substance."[59]

In October 2019, Rahul Chimanbhai Mehta, a graduate of IIT-Delhi and founder of Right to Recall Party gave an advertisement in The Indian Express news paper explaining how EVMs can be rigged. In the advertisement he also explained how VVPAT can steal votes. He claimed malicious codes can be entered in the machine to change what the EVM shows by way of results. He proposed a solution of either a colourless, transparent VVPAT machine, or no EVM at all.[63]

On 30 March 2022, a Congress leader Shashi Tharoor tweeted that the mounting level of concerns about irregularities in the handling of EVMs requires a serious response from the Election Commission. He referred to the official confirmation of “missing EVMs” with a newspaper report.[64]

On 8 May 2022, a Karnataka Congress leader and MLA H.K. Patil urged the Legislative Assembly Speaker Vishveshwara Hegde Kageri to investigate into the issue of 19 lakh (1.9 million) missing EVMs. A delegation led by Patil demanded the probe to be carried out by a Special Committee headed by a Judge of the Supreme Court. Patil expressed his concern over the inordinate delays in taking up petitions by the courts regarding the use of EVMs.[65]

Voter-verifiable paper audit trail

Further information: Voter-verified paper audit trail

On 8 October 2010 Election Commission appointed an expert technical committee headed by Prof. P. V. Indiresan (former Director of IIT-M) when at an all-party meeting majority of political parties backed the proposal to have a VVPAT in EVMs to counter the charges of tampering. The committee was tasked to examine the possibility of introduction of a paper trail so that voters can get a printout that will show symbol of the party to which the vote was cast.[8] After studying the issue, the committee recommended introduction of VVPAT system.[66]

On 21 June 2011, Election Commission accepted Indiresan committee's recommendations and decided to conduct field trials of the system.[67] On 26 July 2011, field trials of the VVPAT system were conducted at Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, Cherrapunjee in Meghalaya, East Delhi in Delhi and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan.[68][69]

The Election Commission on 19 January 2012 agreed to add a "paper trail" of the vote cast. The upgrade of EVMs that followed modified the EVM software and a printer was attached to the machine. With the VVPAT system, when a vote is cast, it is recorded in its memory and simultaneously a serial number and vote data is printed out. This states Anil Kumar, the managing director of the state-owned EVM manufacturer Bharat Electronic Limited, ensures more confidence in the voting results.[70] The printouts, Kumar said, "are used later to cross-check the voting data stored in the EVMs".[9][71]

Voter-verifiable paper audit trail was first used in an election in India in September 2013 in Noksen in Nagaland.[72] The voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) system was introduced in 8 of 543 parliamentary constituencies in 2014.[73][74][75] VVPAT was implemented in the 2014 elections at Lucknow, Gandhinagar, Bangalore South,[76] Chennai Central, Jadavpur, Raipur, Patna Sahib[77][78] and Mizoram constituencies.[79][80][81]

On 8 October 2013, Supreme Court of India delivered its verdict on Subramanian Swamy's PIL, that Election Commission of India will use VVPAT along with EVMs in a phased manner.[54][82][83] In June 2018, Election Commission of India decided that all VVPATs will have a built-in-hood to protect the printer and other devices from excess light and heat.[84]

Exports

Nepal, Bhutan, Namibia and Kenya have purchased India-manufactured EVMs. Fiji was expected to use Indian EVMs in its elections in 2014. In 2013, the Election Commission of Namibia acquired 1700 control units and 3500 ballot units from India's Bharat Electronics Limited; these units will be used in the regional and presidential elections in 2014.[85] Several other Asian and African countries are reportedly interested in using them as well.[86]

See also

Further reading

  • (PDF). High Courts of India. 17 January 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 January 2012. Retrieved 6 July 2012. Delhi High Court judgement saying EVMs are not foolproof.

References

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External links

  • "Electronic Voting Machine". Election Commission of India.
  • Security Analysis of India's Electronic Voting Machines, Scott Wolchok et al, A paper presented at the 17th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security Conference

March 31, 2023
electronic, voting, india, electronic, voting, standard, means, conducting, elections, using, electronic, voting, machines, evms, india, system, developed, tested, state, owned, electronics, corporation, india, bharat, electronics, 1990s, they, were, introduce. Electronic voting is the standard means of conducting elections using Electronic Voting Machines EVMs in India 1 2 The system was developed and tested by the state owned Electronics Corporation of India and Bharat Electronics in the 1990s They were introduced in Indian elections between 1998 and 2001 in a phased manner Prior to the introduction of electronic voting India used paper ballots and manual counting The paper ballots method was widely criticised because of fraudulent voting and booth capturing where party loyalists captured booths and stuffed them with pre filled fake ballots The printed paper ballots were also more expensive requiring substantial post voting resources to count hundreds of millions of individual ballots 2 1 Embedded EVM features such as electronically limiting the rate of casting votes to five per minute 1 a security lock close feature an electronic database of voting signatures and thumb impressions to confirm the identity of the voter conducting elections in phases over several weeks while deploying extensive security personnel at each booth 1 have helped reduce electoral fraud and abuse eliminate booth capturing and create more competitive and fairer elections 3 2 Indian EVMs are stand alone machines built with once write read only memory 4 The EVMs are produced with secure manufacturing practices and by design are self contained battery powered and lack any networking capability They do not have any wireless or wired internet components and interface 5 The M3 version of the EVMs includes the VVPAT system 4 VVPAT used with Indian electronic voting machines in Indian Elections Control unit in EVM Electionic Voting Machine India ballot Unit In recent elections various opposition parties have alleged faulty EVMs after they failed to defeat the incumbent 6 7 After rulings of Delhi High Court the Supreme Court of India in 2011 directed the Election Commission to include a paper trail as well to help confirm the reliable operation of EVMs 7 8 The Election Commission developed EVMs with voter verified paper audit trail VVPAT system between 2012 and 2013 The system was tried on a pilot basis in the 2014 Indian general election 9 10 EVMs and accompanying Voter verified paper audit trail VVPAT are now used in every assembly and general election in India and a small percentage of the VVPATs are verified 11 12 13 On 9 April 2019 Supreme Court of India ordered the Election Commission of India to use VVPAT paper trail system in every assembly constituency but verify only about 2 of the EVMs i e 5 polling stations per constituency 13 before certifying the final results The Election Commission of India has acted under this order and deployed VVPAT verification for 20 625 EVMs in the 2019 Indian general election 14 15 16 The Election Commission of India states that their machines system checks safeguard procedures and election protocols are fully tamper proof A team led by Vemuri Hari Prasad of NetIndia Private Limited has shown that if criminals get physical possession of the EVMs before the voting they can change the hardware inside and thus manipulate the results 17 The Prasad team recommended a VVPAT paper trail system for verification 17 The Election Commission states that along with VVPAT method immediately prior to the election day a sample number of votes for each political party nominee is entered into each machine in the presence of polling agents At the end of this sample trial run the votes counted and matched with the entered sample votes to ensure that the machine s hardware has not been tampered with it is operating reliably and that there were no hidden votes pre recorded in each machine 18 Machines that yield a faulty result have been replaced to ensure a reliable electoral process 19 20 Contents 1 History 1 1 EVM and Indian judiciary 1 2 Electronic voting 2 Design and technology 3 Procedure to use 4 Benefits 5 Limitations 6 Security issues 6 1 2019 allegations 7 Voter verifiable paper audit trail 8 Exports 9 See also 10 Further reading 11 References 12 External linksHistory EditIndia used paper ballots till the 1990s The sheer scale of the Indian elections with more than half a billion people eligible to vote combined with election related criminal activity led Indian election authority and high courts to transition to electronic voting 2 21 According to Arvind Verma a professor of Criminal Justice with a focus on South Asia Indian elections have been marked by criminal fraud and ballot tampering since the 1950s The first major election with large scale organized booth capturing were observed in 1957 21 The journalist Prem Shankar Jha states Milan Vaishnav documented the booth capturing activity by Congress party leaders and the opposition parties soon resorted to the same fraudulent activity in the 1960s 22 A booth capture was the phenomenon where party loyalists criminal gangs and musclemen entered the booth with force in villages and remote areas and stuffed the ballot boxes with pre filled fake paper ballots 23 24 This problem grew between the 1950s and 1980s and became a serious and large scale problem in states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar 2 21 later spreading to Andhra Pradesh Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal accompanied with election day violence 25 Another logistical problem was the printing of paper ballots transporting and safely storing them and physically counting hundreds of millions of votes 1 21 The Election Commission of India led by T N Seshan sought a solution by developing Electronic voting machines in the 1990s 21 26 These devices were designed to prevent fraud by limiting how fast new votes can be entered into the electronic machine 21 By limiting the rate of vote entered every minute to five the Commission aimed to increase the time required to cast fake ballots therefore allow the security forces to intervene in cooperation with the volunteers of the competing political parties and the media 2 21 3 The Commission introduced other features such as EVM initialization procedures just before the elections 5 Officials tested each machine prior to the start of voting to confirm its reliable operation in the front of independent polling agents They added a security lock close button which saved the votes already cast in the device s permanent memory but disabled the device s ability to accept additional votes in the case of any attempt to open the unit or tamper 2 18 The Commission decided to conduct the elections over several weeks in order to move and post a large number of security forces at each booth On the day of voting the ballots were also locked and then saved in a secure location under the watch of state security and local volunteer citizens Additionally the Election Commission also created a database of thumb impressions and electronic voting signatures open to inspection by polling agent volunteers and outside observers 2 The EVMs based system at each booth matches the voter with a registered card with this electronic database in order to ensure that a voter cannot cast a ballot more than once 2 3 According to Debnath and other scholars these efforts of the Election Commission of India developed in consultations with the Indian courts experts and volunteer feedback from different political parties have reduced electoral fraud in India and made the elections fairer and more competitive 3 EVM and Indian judiciary Edit EVM and electronic voting have been the subject of numerous court cases in Indian courts including the Supreme Court of India The first case was filed in the 1980s even before EVMs were used in any election The AC Jose vs Sivan Pillai case was a case seeking a stay order on the use of EVMs for Kerala election 27 The case was reviewed by the Supreme Court It ruled on March 5 1984 that the extant laws of India in particular Sections 59 61 of the Representation of People Act 1951 specified paper ballots and it therefore forbade the use of any other technology including electronic voting And it was used in 1982 in Kerala for a limited number of polling stations The EVMs were first time used on an experimental basis in selected constituencies of Rajasthan Madhya Pradesh and Delhi The Court stated that the use of an alternate technology would require the Indian parliament to amend the law 27 The parliament of India amended the Representation of People Act in December 1988 Section 61A of the amended law empowered the Election Commission to deploy voting machines instead of paper ballots The amended law became effective from March 15 1989 27 The use of EVMs their reliability and speculations about fraud through the use of EVMs have been the subject of many lawsuits before state high courts and the Supreme Court of India These courts have either dismissed the cases as frivolous or ruled in the favor of the Election Commission and the EVMs 28 Of these in the 2002 ruling on the J Jayalalithaa and Ors vs Election Commission of India case the Supreme Court of India stated that the use of EVMs in elections was constitutionally valid 28 29 Regarding the mismatch of EVM data an election research organization Association for Democratic Reforms ADR filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India on 15 November 2019 asking for a court order directing the Election Commission of India to conduct actual and accurate reconciliation of votes data before the declaration of the final result of any election ADR also made an appeal for an investigation into all discrepancies in the data related to the 2019 Lok Sabha election results 30 Electronic voting Edit The Indian electronic voting machine EVM were developed in 1989 by Election Commission of India in collaboration with Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited The Industrial designers of the EVMs were faculty members at the Industrial Design Centre IIT Bombay The EVMs were first used in 1982 in the by election to North Paravur Assembly Constituency in Kerala for a limited number of polling stations 31 The EVMs were first time used on an experimental basis in selected constituencies of Rajasthan Madhya Pradesh and Delhi The EVMs were used first time in the general election entire state to the assembly of Goa in 1999 In 2003 all by elections and state elections were held using EVMs encouraged by this election commission decided to use only EVMs for Lok Sabha elections in 2004 Design and technology Edit Ballot Unit left control unit right The EVM was designed by two professors of IIT Bombay A G Rao and Ravi Poovaiah 32 An EVM consists of two units a control unit and the balloting unit 33 The two units are joined by a five meter cable Balloting unit facilitates voting by a voter via labeled buttons while the control unit controls the ballot units stores voting counts and displays the results on 7 segment LED displays The controller used in EVMs has its operating program etched permanently in silicon at the time of manufacturing by the manufacturer No one including the manufacturer can change the program once the controller is manufactured The control unit is operated by one of the polling booth officers while the balloting unit is operated by the voter in privacy The officer confirms the voter s identification then electronically activates the ballot unit to accept a new vote Once the voter enters the vote the balloting unit displays the vote to the voter records it in its memory A close command issued from the control unit by the polling booth officer registers the vote relocks the unit to prevent multiple votes The process is repeated when the next voter with a new voter ID arrives before the polling booth officer 33 EVMs are powered by an ordinary 6 volt alkaline battery 34 manufactured by Bharat Electronics Limited Bangalore and Electronics Corporation of India Limited Hyderabad This design enables the use of EVMs throughout the country without interruptions because several parts of India do not have the power supply and or erratic power supply The two units cannot work without each other After a poll closes on a particular election day the units are separated and the control units moved and stored separately in locked and guarded premises 33 Both units have numerous tamper proof protocols Their hardware by design can only be programmed once at the time of their manufacture and they cannot be reprogrammed 35 5 They do not have any wireless communication components inside nor any internet interface and related hardware 35 The balloting unit has an internal real time clock and a protocol by which it records every input output event with a timestamp whenever they are connected to a battery pack 35 The designers intentionally opted for battery power to prevent the possibility that the power cables might be used to interfere with the reliable functioning of an EVM 35 An EVM can record a maximum of 3840 now 2000 votes and can cater to a maximum of 64 candidates There is provision for 16 candidates in a single balloting unit and up to a maximum of 4 balloting units with 64 candidate names and the respective party symbols can be connected in parallel to the control unit 33 If there are more than 64 candidates the conventional ballot paper box method of polling is deployed by the Election Commission 33 After a 2013 upgrade an Indian EVM can cater to a maximum of 384 candidates plus None Of The Above option NOTA 4 The current electronic voting machines in India are the M3 version with VVPAT capability the older versions being M1 and M2 They are built and encoded with once write software read only masked memory at the state owned and high security premises of the Bharat Electronics Limited and the Electronics Corporation of India Limited 4 36 The inventory of election EVMs is securely tracked by the Election Commission of India on a real time basis with EVM Tracking Software ETS This system tracks its digital verification identity and physical presence The M3 EVMs has embedded hardware and software that enables only a particular control unit to work with a particular voting unit issued by the Election Commission as another layer of tamper proofing Additional means of tamper proofing the machines include several layers of seals Indian EVMs are stand alone non networked machines 37 38 Procedure to use EditThe control unit is with the presiding officer or a polling officer and the balloting Unit is placed inside the voting compartment The balloting unit presents the voter with blue buttons momentary switch horizontally labeled with corresponding party symbol and candidate names The Control Unit on the other hand provides the officer in charge with a Ballot marked button to proceed to the next voter instead of issuing a ballot paper to them This activates the ballot unit for a single vote from the next voter in the queue The voter has to cast his vote by once pressing the blue button on the balloting unit against the candidate and symbol of his choice As soon as the last voter has voted the Polling Officer in charge of the Control Unit will press the Close Button Thereafter the EVM will not accept any votes Further after the close of the poll the Balloting Unit is disconnected from the Control Unit and kept separately Votes can be recorded only through the Balloting Unit Again the Presiding officer at the close of the poll will hand over to each polling agent present an account of votes recorded At the time of counting of votes the total will be tallied with this account and if there is any discrepancy this will be pointed out by the Counting Agents During the counting of votes the results are displayed by pressing the Result button There are two safeguards to prevent the Result button from being pressed before the counting of votes officially begins a This button cannot be pressed till the Close button is pressed by the Polling Officer in charge at the end of the voting process in the polling booth b This button is hidden and sealed this can be broken only at the counting center in the presence of a designated office Benefits EditThe cost per EVM was 5 500 equivalent to 50 000 or US 630 in 2020 at the time the machines were purchased in 1989 90 The cost was estimated to be 10 500 equivalent to 14 000 or US 180 in 2020 per unit as per an additional order issued in 2014 39 Even though the initial investment was heavy it has since been expected to save costs of production and printing of crores of ballot papers their transportation and storage substantial reduction in the counting staff and the remuneration paid to them For each national election it is estimated that about 10 000 tonnes of the ballot paper is saved EVMs are easier to transport compared to ballot boxes as they are lighter more portable and come with polypropylene carrying cases Vote counting is also faster In places where illiteracy is a factor illiterate people find EVMs easier than ballot paper system Bogus voting is greatly reduced as the vote is recorded only once The unit can store the result in its memory before it is erased manually The battery is required only to activate the EVMs at the time of polling and counting and as soon as the polling is over the battery can be switched off The shelf life of Indian EVMs is estimated at 15 years 40 Limitations EditMain article Totaliser A candidate can know how many people from a polling station voted for them This is a significant issue particularly if lop sided votes for against a candidate are cast in individual polling stations and the winning candidate might show favoritism or hold a grudge on specific areas The Election Commission of India has stated that the manufacturers of the EVMs have developed a Totaliser unit which can connect several balloting units and would display only the overall results from an Assembly or a Lok Sabha constituency instead of votes from individual polling stations 41 42 Security issues EditAn international conference on the Indian EVMs and their tamperability was held under the chairmanship of Subramanian Swamy President of the Janata Party and former Union Cabinet Minister for Law Commerce and Justice at Chennai on 13 February 2010 The conclusion was that the Election Commission of India was shirking its responsibility on the transparency in the working of the EVMs 43 In April 2010 an independent security analysis was released by a research team led by Hari K Prasad Rop Gonggrijp and Alex Halderman 17 In order to mitigate these threats the researchers suggest moving to a voting system that provides greater transparency such as paper ballots precinct count optical scan or a voter verified paper audit trail since in any of these systems skeptical voters could in principle observe the physical counting process to gain confidence that the outcome is fair 44 45 46 Manufacturers of Electronic Voting Machines namely Electronics Corporation of India Limited Hyderabad and Bharat Electronics Limited Bengaluru have said that EVMs are unhackable and tamper proof as programming for EVMs is done at a secure manufacturing facility in ECIL and BEL where operations are logged electronically and not with chip manufacturers 35 Control and ballot units in EVMs and VVPATs have an anti tamper mechanism by which they become non operational if it is illegally opened EVMs are standalone machines have no radio frequency transmission device features operate on battery packs and cannot be reprogrammed The Control Unit of EVMs has a real time clock that logs every event on its right from the time it was switched on The anti tamper mechanism in the machine can detect even 100 millisecond variations On 25 July 2011 responding to a PIL Writ Petition Civil No 312 of 2011 Supreme Court of India asked EC to consider request to modify EVMs and respond within three months The petitioner Rajendra Satyanarayan Gilda had alleged that EC has failed to take any decision despite his repeated representation The petitioner suggested that the EVMs should be modified to give a slip printed with the symbol of the party in whose favour the voter cast his ballot 7 47 48 49 On 17 January 2012 Delhi High Court in its ruling on Dr Subramanian Swamy s Writ Petition Writ Petition Civil No 11879 of 2009 challenging the use of EVMs in the present form said that EVMs are not tamper proof Further it said that it is difficult to issue any directions to the EC in this regard However the court added that the EC should itself hold wider consultations with the executive political parties and other stake holders on the matter 50 51 Swamy appealed against Delhi High Court s refusal to order a VVPAT system in Supreme Court On 27 September 2012 Election Commission s advocate Ashok Desai submitted to a Supreme Court bench of Justice P Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi that field trial for the VVPAT system is in progress and that a status report will be submitted by early January 2013 Desai said that on pressing of each vote a paper receipt will be printed which will be visible to the voters inside a glass but cannot be taken out of the machine Dr Swamy said that the new system was acceptable to him The Supreme Court posted the matter for further hearing to 22 January 2013 52 53 and on 8 October 2013 it delivered a verdict that the Election Commission of India will use VVPAT 54 Another similar writ petition filed by the Asom Gana Parishad is still pending before the Gauhati High Court 55 2019 allegations Edit Syed Shuja an expert on EVMs as claimed by India Today 56 has alleged that Indian EVMs can be hacked and also made serious allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP led government at the Centre Shuja addressed a press conference in London via video conferencing and demonstrated hacking of the EVM The cyber expert also claimed that late minister Gopinath Munde who died in June 2014 was allegedly murdered because he was about to expose his own government over the hackings 57 Shuja appeared from a remote location using Skype in January 2019 for a press conference organized by the Indian Journalists Association 58 and the London based Foreign Press Association 59 He alleged that the EVM units can be wirelessly tampered with and have been tampered with the help of Reliance Communications He also made allegations of many murders and other criminal activity associated with EVMs tampering allegations he could not substantiate nor did he present any evidence for his allegations before journalists gathered in London for the Shuja press interview 60 The possibility of EVM tampering as described by Shuja have been rejected by the Election Commission of India 56 The Commission stated that the Indian EVMs do not contain any wireless chips and related communication components 60 The Election Commission reiterated that their official EVMs are manufactured in India under very strict supervisory and security conditions and there are rigorous Standard Operating Procedures meticulously observed at all stages under the supervision of a Committee of eminent technical experts constituted way back in 2010 56 The commission has charged Shuja under Section 505 1 b of the Indian Penal Code titled Punishment for Statements Conducing to Public Mischief by lodging a First Information Report against him with the Delhi Police 61 The Bharatiya Janata Party attributed this claim to the opposing Indian National Congress as an attempt by them to manipulate the electorate with fake news before forthcoming elections 62 In January 2019 the London based press conference organizer stated The Foreign Press Association strongly disassociates itself with any claims made by the speaker Syed Shuja during the IJA event about Indian EVMs and related matters in London yesterday Not one of the masked speaker s accusations has so far been corroborated 59 The India Today called Shuja s allegations as sensationalism without substance 59 In October 2019 Rahul Chimanbhai Mehta a graduate of IIT Delhi and founder of Right to Recall Party gave an advertisement in The Indian Express news paper explaining how EVMs can be rigged In the advertisement he also explained how VVPAT can steal votes He claimed malicious codes can be entered in the machine to change what the EVM shows by way of results He proposed a solution of either a colourless transparent VVPAT machine or no EVM at all 63 On 30 March 2022 a Congress leader Shashi Tharoor tweeted that the mounting level of concerns about irregularities in the handling of EVMs requires a serious response from the Election Commission He referred to the official confirmation of missing EVMs with a newspaper report 64 On 8 May 2022 a Karnataka Congress leader and MLA H K Patil urged the Legislative Assembly Speaker Vishveshwara Hegde Kageri to investigate into the issue of 19 lakh 1 9 million missing EVMs A delegation led by Patil demanded the probe to be carried out by a Special Committee headed by a Judge of the Supreme Court Patil expressed his concern over the inordinate delays in taking up petitions by the courts regarding the use of EVMs 65 Voter verifiable paper audit trail EditFurther information Voter verified paper audit trail On 8 October 2010 Election Commission appointed an expert technical committee headed by Prof P V Indiresan former Director of IIT M when at an all party meeting majority of political parties backed the proposal to have a VVPAT in EVMs to counter the charges of tampering The committee was tasked to examine the possibility of introduction of a paper trail so that voters can get a printout that will show symbol of the party to which the vote was cast 8 After studying the issue the committee recommended introduction of VVPAT system 66 On 21 June 2011 Election Commission accepted Indiresan committee s recommendations and decided to conduct field trials of the system 67 On 26 July 2011 field trials of the VVPAT system were conducted at Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala Cherrapunjee in Meghalaya East Delhi in Delhi and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan 68 69 The Election Commission on 19 January 2012 agreed to add a paper trail of the vote cast The upgrade of EVMs that followed modified the EVM software and a printer was attached to the machine With the VVPAT system when a vote is cast it is recorded in its memory and simultaneously a serial number and vote data is printed out This states Anil Kumar the managing director of the state owned EVM manufacturer Bharat Electronic Limited ensures more confidence in the voting results 70 The printouts Kumar said are used later to cross check the voting data stored in the EVMs 9 71 Voter verifiable paper audit trail was first used in an election in India in September 2013 in Noksen in Nagaland 72 The voter verifiable paper audit trail VVPAT system was introduced in 8 of 543 parliamentary constituencies in 2014 73 74 75 VVPAT was implemented in the 2014 elections at Lucknow Gandhinagar Bangalore South 76 Chennai Central Jadavpur Raipur Patna Sahib 77 78 and Mizoram constituencies 79 80 81 On 8 October 2013 Supreme Court of India delivered its verdict on Subramanian Swamy s PIL that Election Commission of India will use VVPAT along with EVMs in a phased manner 54 82 83 In June 2018 Election Commission of India decided that all VVPATs will have a built in hood to protect the printer and other devices from excess light and heat 84 Exports EditNepal Bhutan Namibia and Kenya have purchased India manufactured EVMs Fiji was expected to use Indian EVMs in its elections in 2014 In 2013 the Election Commission of Namibia acquired 1700 control units and 3500 ballot units from India s Bharat Electronics Limited these units will be used in the regional and presidential elections in 2014 85 Several other Asian and African countries are reportedly interested in using them as well 86 See also EditElectoral fraud None of the above Postal voting in India Risk limiting audit Voting machineFurther reading Edit WP C No 11879 of 2009 PDF High Courts of India 17 January 2012 Archived from the original PDF on 31 January 2012 Retrieved 6 July 2012 Delhi High Court judgement saying EVMs are not foolproof References Edit a b c d e Verma Arvind 2005 Policing Elections in India India Review 4 3 4 354 376 doi 10 1080 14736480500302217 S2CID 154413285 a b c d e f g h i Madhavan Somanathan 2019 India s electoral democracy How EVMs curb electoral fraud Brookings Institution Washington DC a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help a b c d Debnath Sisir Kapoor Mudit Ravi Shamika 2017 The Impact of Electronic Voting Machines on Electoral Frauds Democracy and Development 1 59 SSRN 3041197 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help a b c d Lok Sabha elections 2019 Check FAQs related to EVMS India Today March 15 2019 a b c A look inside the electronic voting machine The Hindu March 10 2019 CPI M JD S back Advani on EVM manipulation issue The Hindu Chennai India 6 July 2009 Archived from the original on 9 July 2009 Retrieved 23 June 2012 a b c SC asks EC to consider request to modify EVMs The Times of India 26 July 2011 Archived from the original on 19 December 2013 Retrieved 15 February 2012 a b Ranjan Rakesh 15 December 2011 Delhi HC to decide on EVMs The Pioneer Retrieved 10 January 2012 a b New EVMs to have paper trail The Times of India 20 January 2012 Archived from the original on 22 January 2012 Retrieved 20 January 2012 EVM paper trail introduced in 8 of 543 constituencies Daily News and Analysis 27 April 2014 Retrieved 10 January 2019 EC announces Lok Sabha election dates VVPATs to be used in all polling stations help bring more accuracy in voting 10 March 2019 What are EVMs VVPAT and how safe they are The Times of India 6 December 2018 Retrieved 10 January 2019 a b EVM VVPAT pass test in Lok Sabha polls The Economic Times 23 May 2019 Retrieved 29 October 2019 Count VVPAT slips of 5 booths in each assembly seat SC The Times of India SC Directs ECI To Increase VVPAT Verification From One EVM To Five EVMs Per Constituency 8 April 2019 When the SC Says No for Software Audit Review of EVMs amp VVPAT at Present a b c Wolchok Scott Wustrow Eric Halderman J Alex Prasad Hari K Kankipati Arun Sakhamuri Sai Krishna Yagati Vasavya Gonggrijp Rop October 2010 Security Analysis of India s Electronic Voting Machines PDF 17th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security a b Electronic Voting Machine The Election Commission of India CEO issues clarification says faulty EVM polled votes for Congress not BJP United News of India April 26 2019 Goa s faulty EVM polled votes for Congress not BJP CEO Business Standard April 26 2019 a b c d e f g Arvind Verma 2009 Situational Prevention and Elections in India International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences 4 2 86 89 Milan Vaishnav 2017 When Crime Pays Money and Muscle in Indian Politics Yale University Press pp 87 88 ISBN 978 0 300 21620 2 Arvind Verma 2009 Situational Prevention and Elections in India International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences 4 2 86 87 Quote Organized booth capturing began in 1957 when a group of upper caste muscle men chased away the electorate and forcibly cast the votes for their candidate Sen 2004 Such booth capturing the forcible casting of votes in favor of a particular candidate and the use of force to prevent genuine voters from exercising their rights slowly became a serious problem in most parts of India and especially in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh Milan Vaishnav 2017 When Crime Pays Money and Muscle in Indian Politics Yale University Press pp 87 111 ISBN 978 0 300 21620 2 N S Saksena 1993 India Towards Anarchy 1967 1992 Abhinav Publications pp 38 39 ISBN 978 81 7017 296 3 Milan Vaishnav 2017 When Crime Pays Money and Muscle in Indian Politics Yale University Press pp 110 111 ISBN 978 0 300 21620 2 a b c Alok Shukla 2018 EVM Electronic Voting Machines Leadstart pp 70 73 ISBN 978 93 5201 122 3 a b Alok Shukla 2018 EVM Electronic Voting Machines Leadstart pp 72 74 ISBN 978 93 5201 122 3 Nandan Nilekani 2012 Imagining India Ideas for the New Century Penguin pp 115 117 ISBN 978 0 14 341799 6 Mismatch in EVM data ADR files petition in Supreme Court News Times of India Videos The Times of India Retrieved 6 August 2022 Electronic Voting Machine Chapter 39 Reference handbook Election commission of India Press Information Bureau Archived from the original on 7 March 2009 Retrieved 1 September 2010 Used in Hazaribagh District Chhapia Hemali 17 April 2009 It s possible to trace back every vote in EVM Times of India Retrieved 20 April 2021 a b c d e Vishesh Shrivastava Girish Tere 2016 An Analysis of Electronic Voting Machine for its Effectiveness International Journal of Computing Experiments 1 1 8 12 ECI Voting Equipments Election Commission of India Retrieved 10 January 2019 a b c d e EVMs foolproof can t be tampered with says former ECIL chairman The Times of India All Questions About EVMs Are Answered Here 11 May 2017 Vishnoi Anubhuti Election Commission plans to replace all pre 2006 EVMs with advanced M3 machines The Economic Times Zero Complaints Came Up After Lok Sabha Polls Claims Expert Behind EVMs Electronics Corp Bharat Electronics get EVM contracts The Indian Express 7 March 2014 Retrieved 10 January 2019 Shelf life of 50 EVMs ending have to buy 14 lakh for 2019 EC The Indian Express 25 October 2015 Retrieved 10 January 2019 New counting method for Assembly polls India Today 4 December 2008 Retrieved 10 January 2019 Know Your Electronic Voting Machine PDF Press Information Bureau Retrieved 1 September 2010 Swamy for expert panel on secure EVMs The Hindu Chennai India Archived from the original on 3 February 2013 Retrieved 22 June 2012 Ramani Srinivasan 18 December 2017 It takes a heck of a lot to hack an EVM It s impossible to gain physical access to the machines Plus to impact the results of an election hundreds to thousands of machines will be needed to tamper with which is almost impossible given the hi tech and time consuming nature of the tampering process EVMs cannot be tampered K J Rao Indian Express 7 August 2009 Retrieved 17 September 2012 Lakshman Narayan 10 August 2010 Hot debate over Electronic Voting Machines The Hindu Chennai India SC order on EVM Supreme Court of India 25 July 2011 Retrieved 15 February 2012 SC seeks EC reply on EVM modification The Assam Tribune 25 July 2011 Retrieved 15 February 2012 Do EVMs need modification SC asks EC to decide in 3 weeks Indian Express 25 July 2011 Retrieved 15 February 2012 EVMs not tamper proof but no paper trail Delhi HC The Times of India 17 January 2012 Archived from the original on 18 January 2012 Retrieved 19 January 2012 EVMs not tamper proof Delhi HC The Pioneer 18 January 2012 Retrieved 19 January 2012 Field trial of new EVMs with paper trail under way ECI informs SC Law et al News 27 September 2012 Archived from the original on 9 February 2016 Retrieved 27 September 2012 Supreme Court hearing in Special Leave to Appeal Civil No s 13735 2012 Supreme Court of India New Delhi Retrieved 27 September 2012 a b Supreme Court asks Election Commission to introduce paper trail in EVMs India Today 8 October 2013 Retrieved 10 January 2019 EC buys time on paper trail The Telegraph Calcutta India 5 December 2011 Archived from the original on 3 February 2013 Retrieved 20 January 2012 a b c Motivated slugfest Election Commission slams man claiming EVMs can be hacked India Today 21 January 2019 Retrieved 22 January 2019 Rigged EVM Under attack from BJP Kapil Sibal tries to save face after EVM hacking drama India Today January 22 2019 a b c Foreign Press Association distances itself from Syed Shuja s wild claims about 2014 rigging India Today January 22 2019 a b Mystery man Shuja makes wild claims as London event to show EVM hacking flops India Today January 21 2019 EVM hacking claim EC asks Delhi Police to lodge FIR Press Trust of India 22 January 2019 Retrieved 22 January 2019 EVM hacking claim a Congress sponsored conspiracy to defame Indian democracy BJP Press Trust of India 22 January 2019 Retrieved 22 January 2019 Desk NH Web 26 October 2019 In a first a newspaper ad calls for action against EVMs National Herald Retrieved 9 February 2023 Twitter https twitter com shashitharoor status 1509018119238725634 Retrieved 6 August 2022 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a Missing or empty title help IANS 9 May 2022 Karnataka Cong leader seeks SC judge led probe into 1 9 mn missing EVMs www business standard com Retrieved 6 August 2022 EVM with paper trail to be tested in 200 places The Times of India 1 June 2011 Archived from the original on 4 January 2013 Retrieved 28 July 2012 Election Commission to introduce EVM and VVPAT system for more transparent electronic voting The Economic Times 21 June 2011 Retrieved 28 July 2012 New voting machines found perfect Election Commission Kolkata News 28 July 2011 Archived from the original on 13 April 2013 Retrieved 28 July 2012 New Voting Machines Found Perfect EC Daijiworld com 28 July 2011 Retrieved 28 July 2012 New EVMs to paper trail The Times of India January 19 2012 New EVMs to have paper trail BEL Firstpost 19 January 2012 Retrieved 20 January 2012 Nagaland first to use VVPAT device for voting Business Standard 4 September 2013 Retrieved 10 January 2019 LS polls Voters to get automated receipts at Gandhinagar Business Standard Press Trust of India 29 April 2014 Retrieved 10 January 2019 VVPAT machine to be on demonstration for 10 days The Hindu 4 April 2014 Retrieved 10 January 2019 VVPAT to be introduced in Jadavpur constituency India TV News 2 April 2014 Retrieved 10 January 2019 VVPAT to Debut in B lore South The New Indian Express 4 April 2014 Retrieved 10 January 2019 Patna Sahib electorate can see who they voted for The Times of India Retrieved 10 January 2019 400 EVMs on standby for Patna Sahib Pataliputra The Times of India Retrieved 10 January 2019 Election Commission of India Election Commission of India Retrieved 10 January 2019 VVPAT a revolutionary step in voting transparency Daily News and Analysis 27 April 2014 Retrieved 27 April 2014 EVM slip will help verify your vote The Times of India Retrieved 10 January 2019 Civil Appeal No 9093 of 2013 Supreme Court of India Archived from the original on 2 May 2014 Retrieved 10 January 2019 Elections 2014 SC directive to EC for paper trail in EVMs The Hindu 8 October 2013 Retrieved 10 January 2019 Vishnoi Anubhuti 11 June 2018 All VVPATs in 2019 to come with hood to keep light at bay The Economic Times Retrieved 10 January 2019 ECN unveils tamper free voting machines Namibian Sun 5 July 2013 Archived from the original on 9 July 2013 Tiwari Rajnish Herstatt Cornelius January 2012 India A Lead Market for Frugal Innovations Extending the Lead Market Theory to Emerging Economies PDF Hamburg University of Technology p 18 Retrieved 11 March 2013 Supreme Court issues contempt notice to Election Commission of India Criticbrain com 1 July 2016 Archived from the original on 21 January 2018 Retrieved 31 December 2018 External links Edit Electronic Voting Machine Election Commission of India Security Analysis of India s Electronic Voting Machines Scott Wolchok et al A paper presented at the 17th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security Conference Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Electronic voting in India amp oldid 1147012326, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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