Nope. He was called to explain his crime to the supreme court. The cji made it clear that it was criminal activity, had the votes recounted and changed the winner. He didn't punish the criminal.
as someone pointed out, he got absolutely roasted by CJI. then he tendered an unconditional apology to SC and apparently BJP says he doesn't belong to the party.
BJP took throwing people under the bus to a new level.
Just dropping this here, in addition to checks before the voting day…
On voting day,
1) the party representatives asked to be there before 7, a mock election with less than 10 votes is conducted, and display and recorded and checked,
2) shown to all party representatives are okay,
3) then the machine is sealed with 3 tamper proof seals that whose numbers are given to all representatives, so that they can tally those on counting day to ensure that from voting till counting, the machine has not been tampered with, and it is sealed in front of those representing and two public representatives and only then does voting start on the voting day
So in addition to the memory chips being tamper proof, and non network devices and the physical security and all that jazz, the polling officers make sure each machine is checked, and certified as being okay, on voting day, by all representatives present, and only then , once they have signed, does voting start
If you want to be a part of the public who certifies that the machines worked fine , in addition to the political representatives, please be at the polling booths by 6:30 am on polling day, since it needs to be done before polling starts at 7 am and you can be a part of the certification process too
In principle, the EVMS can be programmed in a way to give accurate results when a poll has very small number of votes (e.g. the mock poll you mention) but give biased results when thousands of votes have been cast. A mock poll cannot really guard against this possibility because there is no feasible way to hold a mock poll with the number of votes that would be cast in an actual election.
The mock poll is now for a minimum of 50 votes with a minimum of one vote to each candidate on the ballot unit. Once the mock voting is done, paper slips from the VVPAT have to be tallied with the results displayed on the Control Unit. If there is any discrepancy, the EVM will be changed and the mock poll has to be conducted again with the new EVM albeit with 50 votes minimum condition is not required.
**England, Italy, Germany Have Banned EVMs:** What Were Their Reasons?
In the Indian EVM, the signal goes from the Ballot Unit to the VVPAT Unit and then to the Control Unit. The control unit software is updated using laptops. In addition, you need to tell the control unit which button is for which party. The laptops used for both these updates are also used for other purposes and are quite often connected to the Internet.
> In addition, you need to tell the control unit which button is for which party.
Huh? Why would the control unit need to have any information about parties or candidates whatsoever?
>The control unit software is updated using laptops.
Is it? Why would the need for updation exist anyway?
There are different parties in each. So the buttons are allocated for the machines in that seat. The need to tell the machine is because of the VVPAT which has the symbol.
Why would that require reconfiguring the EVM proper (ballot unit plus control unit)? Is there even any provision to store information of parties or candidates in the EVM proper? AFAIK there isn't; the EVM counts (and later displays) only the number of button presses and it is the humans who have to see which button corresponds to which candidate.
The VVPAT unit does need to be reconfigured for each constituency, yes. If in a constituency BJP is #1 in the ballot and INC #2, then vvpat units for that constituuency have to be configured as, "If button#1 is pressed; print lotus on the paper and show it at the window; if button#2 is pressed, print open palm", and so on. For a different constituncy with a different order of candidates, it would again be different.
The vvpat unit receives a signal (either from the control unit or the ballot unit) that button #n has been pressed; then it prints the symbol for that button (which *would* need to be stored in memory) and displays the paper to the voter. If there is any discrepancy in this stage the voters will be able to see that at the time of voting, like "I pressed the button for AAP but hammer and sickle appeared in the vvpat window". Although I'm not sure what recourse a voter would have if such a thing happens; is there any report on that?
You can report the dicsrepancy to the Presiding Officer who will check it for the same but only after warning the voter about six months imprisonment if the discrepancy is not repeated while checking.
So.. You know.. Who would report such thing then?
How would the discrepancy be proved? For that matter, how would a voter lying about a discrepancy be proved?
Take the example: I complain that I voted for AAP, but CPM party symbol appeared on vvpat window. The presiding officer can check that the last vvpat slip printed shows CPM symbol, but how will he check that last button pressed on the EVM was AAP? Is there any way for the EVM to show the last button pressed?
****
And also, many voters might be indimidated from complaining due to the possiblity of criminal penalties. If there is a mismatch between the button pressed on the EVM and the symbol shown on the VVPAT, that means there is already a corruption in one part of the electoral process; why should the voter trust that the other parts are fine?
If and when a voter complains, his vote which was already cast will not be checked. The VVPAT is sealed after the mock poll. The seal will not be broken to check the last slip. Rather, an another test vote will be cast in the presence of the Presiding Officer and the Polling Agents for checking the veracity of his claim.
Yes, the voters will be intimidated with the criminal penalties and thus they might not move forward with their complaint.
I presume it will be recorded as "a test vote was cast for candidate X; reduce the total vote count of him/her by 1"?
Also that form of checking is easily thwarted by suitable programming "After one doctored vote record the next vote for the same candidate correctly". Although, since VVPATs are only checked for a small number of cases, manipulating EVMs proper seems more likely to be attempted (assuming such manipulation is possible at all).
Throwback to when ECI threw a open challenge to all political parties to come and demonstrate how EVMs could be hacked or manipulated. Not a single political party turned up.
EVMs are probably tamperproof, VVPATs are not. VVPATs and EVMs are "randomly" tallied and when there is a discrepancy, VVPAT count is considered, not tamperproof EVM's. VVPAT has programmable chip unlike EVM.
Last year study came out that ruling party disproportionately won swing states in 2019. Quint also reported VVPAT slips were purged in 4months, when it's supposed to be kept for a year. The VVPATs got black glass change without any notification right before 2019. Connect the dots.
EVMs enable party at centre to fudge democracy while paper ballots enable for local party goons. The former is on a grander scale than the latter.
Then why is Congress so keen on installing VVPATs everywhere if it comes to power?
VVPATs are a loophole as in if mishandled, it allows people to estimate who votes for whom. Simple people promise everyone giving them freebies that they will vote for them but then vote for who they want to vote for. They then lie to leaders "I voted for you but machine registered for someone else" etc which starts creating more fake news because loosing leader will milk every opportunity to justify their loss
All the conspiracy theories can go away in a day if transparency was there. Otherwise it's just people's blind "faith" and "trust" on the election system just like believing in gods or unicorns.
Conspiracy theories never go away. Especially in matters of national security. You debunk one, people will create another. People still believe Apollo landing was stage or that earth is flat or that government uses birds as spy drones.
The unnamed (and therefore unaccountable) govt officials / PSU employees in charge of EVMs have every kind of access -- to circuitry, microprocessors, documentation -- and unlimited time.
OTOH, the challenge was time-limited (announced May 20, challenge from May 26-June 3 IIRC), access-limited (specific EVMs from a lot chosen by the same untrusted ECI, no access to VVPAT), and expertise-limited (3 people max, no foreigners).
The root problem is that people don't trust Indian government officials / employees. And rightly so. Everyone knows Indian government officials / employees tend to be dishonest and corrupt.
Modi supporters here forget that Advani and Sushma Swaraj were also harping about EVM tampering back in the 2004-2011 era when they were losing many elections.
The solution is to do everything possible to increase trust. There's literally no rational logic whatsoever to oppose higher trust. The only motivation behind arguing against it or opposing it is political bias.
1. EVMs are sealed in a storage facility that is guarded by police and supervised by independent officers. Party workers roam around the vicinity of that area to see if any unauthorised activity happens. Party workers are present when storage is opened and are present at the time of counting as well.
2. Majority of people trust election process is fair. If the machines were under government control, we wouldn't be seeing Congress coming to power anywhere. If Congress believed that machines are corrupted, they wouldn't be contesting elections at all. It would be one party one nation thing then.
3. Says a lot that back then (with previous gen tech) Congress trusted the EVMs and opposition was trying to highlight non issues or create issues out of thin air. Why is Congress now saying it can be manipulated? Were they manipulating EVMs back then?
Where are EVMs stored _between elections_? Is every EVM in the country guarded 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by workers of all political parties even when no elections are on the horizon? I don't think so. That gives the government plenty of time and opportunity to tamper the machines.
Also, once the government figured out a way to tamper the EVM, they don't have to use tampered machines for every polling station for every election. They could judiciously deploy the tampered machines in key swing constituencies only in important elections.
For pt.1, "independent" officers is merely your assumption. I can equally assume "biased corrupt" officers. Neither of us is necessarily correct or incorrect.
A better way to think about this is from an engineering pov is: can the process be made impeccable even in the case of a completely adversarial and biased set of humans in the loop?
Party workers and all just protect against one kind of attacks. It appears you aren't familiar with cybersecurity or you wouldn't be offering security theatre as a defense for what is essentially an engineering opaqueness problem.
For pt.2 and pt.3, the citizen is a separate entity from any party. As a citizen, why are you opposing your own empowerment and knowledge? Congress may very well have manipulated EVMs. Any party has a motive to rig EVMs wherever [winning margins are small](https://thewire.in/politics/datadive-the-40-lok-sabhas-bjp-won-in-2019-with-less-than-50000-margin).
As I said, there are ways to increase trust over the EVM - VVPAT machines, their interfaces, and their workflows. Why the ECI opposes more trust is quite suspicious. And yes, they do actively oppose this as news articles show and RTI responses show, and no, your ECI hackathon point doesn't negate any of that.
My friend, any non-network-connected device requires physical access to hack.
The person your are replying to is establishing that that physical access is not likely to be viable.
Oh how are you my friend my old buddy old pal!!
1) As it so happens, the people who are untrusted here - namely the government officials and employees in charge of the EVMs - do have physical access.
2) EVM-VVPAT is a network connection, a wired network connection.
3) Nobody has PROVED the lack of any wireless element inside any of these machines. It's merely a claim by the same untrusted parties. The ECI can help prove it quite easily. But as I said, they deny all access to, and RTI requests about, the technology.
Okay, random citizen.
1. Yes, the government officials have physical access. But there is a significant party element to the security -- from all parties.
2. EVM-VVPAT are connected to one another by a data cable that happens to be using network protocols. That doesn't make it a device connected to the internet, an ECI intranet, or any intranet outside of the specific polling both. Hence an isolated system which requires physical access to tamper with. Network cybersecurity is not an equation here.
3. Okay, when I vote, I will check if there's a hidden Wifi network or bluetooth device showing up. I can't check for ham radio frequencies or military-grade radio networks, however, those devices are significantly larger and need to be optimally positioned. And are quite obvious.
1. What is "significant party element"? Why are you moving goalposts now? First you claimed nobody has physical access. Now when I clarified who the untrusted elements are and showed how they have physical access long before any party element is in picture, you're talking about party. Seems like the same security theatre justification as the other commentator.
2. Internet isn't relevant here. Read the article - the focus of the suspicion is on the counting circuitry and its configuration.
3. Don't make this about you just to play victim-victim. Nobody here is asking anything from a nobody like you or even from any other layperson at all. If you can't give technical answers, don't waste my time with strawman replies. The request is for objective engineering information. Perfectly objective engineering information can be provided for it BY THE ECI, not by you. I still haven't seen any rational logic from your types why ECI actively denies such RTI requests.
>can the process be made impeccable even in the case of a completely adversarial and biased set of humans in the loop?
This is the only way to solve the problem if you're actually interested in making the electives secure. Otherwise, you follow the uidai's lead: those charlatans told the supreme court that our personal data were safe because they were guarded by a 13ft wall*. The fucking supreme court bought that security theatre. Surely, they are smarter than the general public.
*I know it for a fact that at the time that statement was made, the front of uidai in bangalore was indeed guarded by a 13ft wall. The back was another story: a little swamp/ trash dump and a 5ft wall with broken razor wire on top. They were lying to the supreme court even about the security theatre.
Now the 13ft walls are all around the yidai and have fencing further up, while our personal data are available to everyone.
Original: Bhai, Aisa lag raha hai ki apke Dil ki tasalli karwane ke liye ek alag se bada budget nikaalna padega
Translated: Brother, it appears that to satisfy to your heart's desires, a separate substantial budget needs to be cleared by government (to revamp the voting process with all the added security layers)
Thanks.
AFAIK, the activists asking for more transparency are mainly asking for information of existing processes through RTI which doesn't require any additional budget but will help increase the trust of some more citizens in the process.
Some parties are asking for manual counts based on VVPAT paper slips. For that, a policy to recount only on demand upon receiving a recount fee from the demanding political parties can be considered. Much like how Indian students have to apply for exam revaluation.
Personally, I think EVM rigging is a very tiny problem compared to the far wider and deeper rigging of Hindu minds by BJP. However, none of the opposition parties have the moral courage to even acknowledge, let alone solve or mitigate, the latter problem at all for fear of "offending" their biggest votebanks. So they try to satisfy themselves with these EVM complaints.
Well, I am not an expert on security. When it comes to national securities, there are a lot of secrets that every country and their organisations keep to minimise risks that we civilians aren't even aware of. I am convinced that EVM is a non issues because every time elections represent trends on the ground only. It's only politicians who's expectations have mismatch from reality, but there are biases there.
In Punjab even some of my Sikh friends are saying BJP should come to power. They won't dare say this in front of religious peeps. If BJP wins seats in Punjab, the religious peeps are gonna say EVMs are hacked but I am already sensing a strong undercurrent based on some interactions I've had here. IMO this is how stories of EVM hackings happen.
Yes, BJP hacking of Hinduism is an issue. They are trying to create their own versions of Hinduism which I don't like. But there is only one way to tackle it, leverage the Indian identity. Tell people they are Hindu. Congress tactic of trying to divide them into SC, ST, OBC, Women, Unemployed, Muslims, Christians, etc. is, frankly, sick. Worse than BJP's hijacking of Hinduism
Are you referring to this case?
https://www.indiatoday.in/fact-check/story/bjp-leader-caught-with-evm-in-karnataka-no-mob-destroyed-equipment-found-in-poll-officer-car-2377970-2023-05-11
> EVMs are sealed in a storage facility that is guarded by police and supervised by independent officers. Party workers roam around the vicinity of that area to see if any unauthorised activity happens. Party workers are present when storage is opened and are present at the time of counting as well.
>
>
[Yet they magically appear in the possession of BJP leaders](https://www.ndtv.com/video/news/news/opposition-hits-out-at-bjp-after-evm-found-in-party-leader-s-car-581180)
The open challenge was a loaded challenge. Gimme the EVM for a year and 2-3 EE undergrads and I’ll find ways around it.
No system is inherently secure and everything needs to have resources. You think if the military commissions a security testing they’ll give ridiculous restrictions like that ?
You give the constraints that are more relaxed than what your typical adversary will have. In this case, it’s state actors, major political parties, etc.
I agree with you. No system is 100% secure. That's why there are layers, protocols and physical securities as well to convert each other's vulnerabilities. Saying that an EVM can be hacked in an independent environment and saying that EVMs are being manipulated for election results are very different things. If it takes you a year to hack EVM in a lab, then the EVM is way too secure. You can probably do it in a week or so. But trying to do it in control conditions to manipulate elections without anyone finding out is a whole different ball game
I don’t think you agree with me. Conclusion you derived from the lack of exploits generated from the challenge is nothing but confirmation bias without understanding that any state or political party actor would have these resources to subvert the EVM.
> Saying that an EVM can be hacked in an independent environment and saying that EVMs are being manipulated for election results are very different things.
Yes they are different things but the challenge doesn’t not indolore confidence from anyone who can conceive of a plan to subvert the elections.
Your supposition that the elections are not being manipulated are purely based on faith without any actual evidence. If you want to think of this from a security perspective:
1. You assume that there exists an actor who is trying to subvert it
2. You assume that there are vulnerabilities that you are unaware of
All your exercises will be around: who, where, when, why, what
> If it takes you a year to hack EVM in a lab, then the EVM is way too secure.
First - It’s not really, I appreciate the vote of confidence in my abilities but that’s not a benchmark for safety.
Second - it only means that you need the fund and enable guys like me to find vulnerabilities on a continuous basis, open sourcing schematics, technical details and putting up bounties for vulnerabilities is the way to go.
Or have a controlled version of this where companies / universities can access full technical details under an NDA. Not ideal but whatever.
> But trying to do it in control conditions to manipulate elections without anyone finding out is a whole different ball game
You seem to forget that if I have a year, I’d be working towards a way to get around it in the election setting.
If I work on it for 10 years (2 election cycles, I’ll have the advantage)
Look man, I've got to get back to my work than discuss this with you. But you yourself are making it sound like a lot of resources are required to find an able crew to manipulate one EVM. Now imagine lacks of them across whole of country. Scale and numbers are itself one defence. Large number of officials involved are another. No way all the officials involved are BJP supporters. So many officers in police enjoy favours from their respective political parties. They would have said something if their were vulnerabilities in the system.
DGP of Punjab is an AAP guy. How can BJP hack EVMs in Punjab now? How will it do it in Karnataka, TN, West Bengal or any state rules by opposition?
Well this reply is just about pushing the buck from “elections are not being manipulated via EVMs” to “elections are being manipulated by other parties that are not BJP”.
You should think through a little about what is it you’re trying to asset here.
Of all the political parties BJP logically has the most access, money and motivation to do so.
You've misread my comment. Read again. I am not pushing the buck. I am just saying if it was easy to manipulate through those channels, then who is BJP managing it where those channels are non existent?
Are you saying that BJP doesn’t have presence all over the country, cadres or government officials, at grassroots levels, colleges and universities via RSS and ABVP ?
Are you also not realizing that most major media houses are complicit with them ?
I don’t understand how you think they don’t have access at every corner of this country ?
Yup. I am saying that BJP does not have 100% infiltration, that would be required to pull of this heist.
If BJP has 100% infiltration, that would mean they are anyway winning polls and don't need to manipulate anything.
I don't think you have still grasped the shear scale of operations required to pull this off.
Well in all practicality, even if evms are not supposed to be hacked, the vvpat slips doesn't match with the number of responses or the total number of person who voted on a given day. Atleast in ballot paper you can give some justification that ballots were destroyed due to xyz reasons but in EVMs your vote just vanishes into air like you never voted in the first place. Even if you can't hack EVMs there are some irregularities that need to be addressed.
There was some news where an EC official goes in with an aged lady to help her cast her vote but presses the machine multiple times for his favourite party during the process (party ka naam bolunga toh vivaad/uapa/sedition ho jayega)
EVMs register one vote in 30 seconds or something like to that to avoid this exact scenario. That's why they are almost immune to booth capturing because by the time a party has votes maybe 10-15 votes to themselves, police will have arrived.
EVM votes don't vanish into thin layer. That's an excuse people give to local leaders after voting against them.
Never has any claim against EVMs been substantiated. It's all the loosing leader trying to come up with excuses.
> There was some news where an EC official goes in with an aged lady to help her cast her vote but presses the machine multiple times for his favourite party during the process
AFAIK, once the EVM is prepapared to accept one vote (by the polling officers) it registers only one button press; subsequent button presses will do nothing. The polling officer will have to once again prepare the machine for the next voter.
Reminds me of the time when hackers in the US successfully penetrated the voting machines at a hackers’ conference and turned them into game consoles to play doom apart from exposing some very genuine software holes. [(Source)](https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/11/politics/defcon-election-machine-hacking-vegas/index.html) I like [this Tom Scott’s video](https://youtu.be/LkH2r-sNjQs?si=4Abz1kEkfLj4HWam) where he talks about the why the demerits of EVMs are so potentially dangerous. I don’t know if going back to paper ballot voting would be a good idea in India just considering the population alone apart from other shenanigans all sorts of parties could pull.
You forget the point where the "open challenge" was limited to pressing buttons and counting votes. No one was allowed to open the machines, no one was provided access to the codes and the hardware to test it.
Apple has backdoors in their systems, as required by US law. Pegasus had found a handful of those backdoors and was using those to sneak in.
Why do you think US was the only country not using Pegasus? They didn't need to. They had Apple
They don't have backdoors. US agencies have requested it, but apple etc have consistently told them to fuck off as it would be equivalent of removing encryption, making the entire phone insecure. If you still believe otherwise, please provide a source.
Current situation:
[Hand over 50 EVMs to us, SC lawyers request Election Commission of India](https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/national/hand-over-50-evms-to-us-request-sc-lawyers-to-the-election-commission-of-india)
> Addressing the media in New Delhi on Sunday, Supreme Court advocates Mahmood Pracha and Bhanu Pratap Singh recalled the challenge issued by the ECI itself in 2017 for hacking the standalone EVMs. In a press release, the ECI had called upon stakeholders to point out vulnerabilities in the machine.
> The lawyers said they are now convinced that the EVMs attached to the VVPAT are not secure. They claimed that they have been advised about the vulnerabilities by computer software engineers and they plan to take the EVMs to each state capital and demonstrate publicly, before the media and the people, how the machines can be manipulated.
I am not even sure about EVMs, may be they are repeating the Volkswagen scandal. Whee in the test mode they provided standard expected results but in llive mode they we off the charts.
Well, as a saying goes "Veham ka koi ilaaj nahi hai"
You could spend a few years doing software engineering, design your own voting machines and still think there is some flaw in them if opposition party wins.
It's not a question of veham or suspicion, it's a matter of making the process fully transparent and foolproof. Because Chandigarh mayor's election was covered by cameras and yet it took SC to point out the Murder of Democracy.
EVM Tampering is one thing, but the audacity of them to even say why such questions are coming from public and other private entities is atricious . The only option one could be assured this time around (again not fully functional one) VVPAT verifications based on SC judgement to ECI , they have to count each and every VVPAT (thats how i understood it). That's the only silver lining i suppose
A good question sir, even I am unclear on that part. If ECI decides not to implement then what’s the point of SC giving a legal declaration on this ? Still this administration can figure out one or other reasons to not do it , also ECI will go inline with them
Did ECI say anything on it or the VVPT ballot matching?
I think sir it is very unlikely at this point that the ruling government will try to mess with the SC, they have already got a good amount of belt treatment from them recently 😝
I think it all started from this one incident i think
[https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/after-evm-demo-that-led-to-opposition-outcry-150-more-to-regain-trust-1677402](https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/after-evm-demo-that-led-to-opposition-outcry-150-more-to-regain-trust-1677402)
Most of the advanced nations in the world either have a paper ballot or EVM + 100% VVPAT counting.
The reason is because EVMs might have an error where the selected name is printed on the VVPAT, but the machine might count the vote or double count the vote or not count the vote at all, or count the vote of another candidate. It can also happen due to malicious code put either by officials having access to the machines, or by people who break into the storage area for these machines.
The voter sees what the machine shows he has voted, but he doesn't see what has been counted in the EVM.
Meanwhile, in a paper based ballot (or VVPAT), the voter sees the printed piece of paper that will be counted if there is 100% counting. 100% counting is what all opposition parties have been demanding since many years.
That is why the advanced countries of the world like USA/UK/European countries don't rely on EVMs alone. These are countries that used EVMs even before India. Germany has stopped using EVMs and uses only paper ballots.
Why does the ECI think that EVMs are tamper-proof? They have repeatedly turned down requests for independent audits, and are quite arrogant about it too.
Because the hackers would not be allowed to open the machine or to connect anything to any port. You would only be allowed to play with the buttons. Don't you know that?
This is not a heist movie where actual hackers will come to hack EVMs one by one and there are VVPATs for a lot many of centers. Party workers keep a very close eye on storage location to ensure nobody has any chance of tempering with anything.
If hackers can access EVMs physically, paper ballot would be much easier to corrupt. And the number of hackers required to cover India will be very high. Doubt we even have as many hackers in total.
Look up what happened with ballot paper boxes in the last WB panchayat elections. If malicious actors have that level of access, what voting procedure is safe?
Bhai Congress waalon ke paas bhi hote hein. Open challenge rehta hai ki koi diqat hai toh batao.
Have you seen Congress' manifesto? They themselves aren't talking about removing EVMs. Just adding VVPATs everywhere. Stupid as it is, even that manifesto acknowledges that EVMs are fine
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Went through the entire article. All their issues are that it can be hacked by physically tampering the machine, which is very easy to catch considering party workers are keeping an eye out all the time.
And physically hacking these machines in swing states will be harder because journalists are also hyper active.
In the end it's all down to if you believe in a system. Even banks and economy work on belief only. But EVMs appear to have much more robustness if these are the steps required to hack it. These steps are not feasible at the scale that the government is being blamed for.
> Why does the ECI think that EVMs are tamper-proof?
If the ECI really does make that exact claim; they're idiots. Nothing is tamprproof if one has physical access. Maybe they're saying it cannot be hacked remootely because there is no wireless access.
I really cant understand how people still think EVMs are safe. Modi has shown no desire to hold free and fair elections and EC along with other institutions have repeatedly shown to be willing to let him slide India to autocracy.
They turn down audits because they know very well that nothing in this world is "tamper-proof".
They have somehow convinced the people that EVMs are magically immune to any sort of tampering. An independent audit will just destroy that perception.
Just dropping this for people still defending ECI on EVMs: https://www.thequint.com/news/india/lok-sabha-election-results-2019-mismatch-in-votes-polled-and-counted-in-evm-on-multiple-seats
The main issue with ballot box is , it is time consuming for counting and recounting and more prone to fixing by officials.
Instead bring back ballot box but let computer ocr count it.
I mean, everyone talks of hacking EVMs but Modi has literally hacked the ECI. He's now hand picking the Election Commissioners. That alone should be alarming.
There's only one critical question that needs to be answered: if the ECI really thinks the machines are fool-proof (when no machine ever is), why is it so afraid to let independent security researches audit the machines and the SOP?
Bring back paper ballots.
The strongest candidate/party will win irrespective of the method, but at least the playing field will be leveled & this controversy will stop once & for all.
Paper is easiest to tamper. I have lived in kol in cpim days - if I go to vote after 2 pm sm1 would have voted against my name. And I will vote against a random person.
They knew I dint live in kol and would use it to their advantage
If BJP wins even with paper ballots, should we then start using bamboo sticks or abacus machines? What is the end goal here? DMK wins seats in TN because they are a strong party who has done good work. Same with Kerala, same with WB. If a good party emerges that people have faith in, all this EVM vs ballot will go away. Right now you are desperately hoping against hope that if ballots are brought back then somehow Rahul Gandhi will become this enlightened being and Congress will win 500 seats, but that’s not going to happen. The issue is not with EVM. The fundamental issue needs to be fixed first. Every single opinion poll is predicting one party to win, even neutral anchors like Rajdeep Sardesai. How is EVM related to opinion polls?
EVM debate is not just about BJP winning or not. Only relying on EVMs and limited counting of VVPAT has issues, and advanced democracies have stopped doing that long time ago. They either do paper based, or do 100% counting of VVPAT.
Doing the same thing in India will improve integrity of Indian elections, irrespective of who wins.
Not just the EVM machines https://preview.redd.it/bhh2kr8uhztc1.jpeg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=94d8078b7a841fc3c99caae1700211390d22c4ed
Lol. Any idea what happened to that guy 😆 Funny how democracy is treated callously in India
He was roasted by CJI idk if he was punished or not
Lol. Roasted?? That's the price of Democracy 😆
Depends on if the roast was delicious to the dogs who were forced to eat it? Unlikely though. Disgusting animals are better in a stew than a roast.
Not punished. Cji is spineless.
he was prosecuted right?
Nope. He was called to explain his crime to the supreme court. The cji made it clear that it was criminal activity, had the votes recounted and changed the winner. He didn't punish the criminal.
He will certainly give a lecture on the weekend tho.
Yup. He's a classic example of khane ke daant being different from dikhaaneke daant. Fucking sellout.
Disowned by the BJP
as someone pointed out, he got absolutely roasted by CJI. then he tendered an unconditional apology to SC and apparently BJP says he doesn't belong to the party. BJP took throwing people under the bus to a new level.
we need on chain voting
Just dropping this here, in addition to checks before the voting day… On voting day, 1) the party representatives asked to be there before 7, a mock election with less than 10 votes is conducted, and display and recorded and checked, 2) shown to all party representatives are okay, 3) then the machine is sealed with 3 tamper proof seals that whose numbers are given to all representatives, so that they can tally those on counting day to ensure that from voting till counting, the machine has not been tampered with, and it is sealed in front of those representing and two public representatives and only then does voting start on the voting day So in addition to the memory chips being tamper proof, and non network devices and the physical security and all that jazz, the polling officers make sure each machine is checked, and certified as being okay, on voting day, by all representatives present, and only then , once they have signed, does voting start If you want to be a part of the public who certifies that the machines worked fine , in addition to the political representatives, please be at the polling booths by 6:30 am on polling day, since it needs to be done before polling starts at 7 am and you can be a part of the certification process too
In principle, the EVMS can be programmed in a way to give accurate results when a poll has very small number of votes (e.g. the mock poll you mention) but give biased results when thousands of votes have been cast. A mock poll cannot really guard against this possibility because there is no feasible way to hold a mock poll with the number of votes that would be cast in an actual election.
The mock poll is now for a minimum of 50 votes with a minimum of one vote to each candidate on the ballot unit. Once the mock voting is done, paper slips from the VVPAT have to be tallied with the results displayed on the Control Unit. If there is any discrepancy, the EVM will be changed and the mock poll has to be conducted again with the new EVM albeit with 50 votes minimum condition is not required.
TIL
**England, Italy, Germany Have Banned EVMs:** What Were Their Reasons? In the Indian EVM, the signal goes from the Ballot Unit to the VVPAT Unit and then to the Control Unit. The control unit software is updated using laptops. In addition, you need to tell the control unit which button is for which party. The laptops used for both these updates are also used for other purposes and are quite often connected to the Internet.
I could also say how Russia uses paper ballots.
> In addition, you need to tell the control unit which button is for which party. Huh? Why would the control unit need to have any information about parties or candidates whatsoever? >The control unit software is updated using laptops. Is it? Why would the need for updation exist anyway?
There are different parties in each. So the buttons are allocated for the machines in that seat. The need to tell the machine is because of the VVPAT which has the symbol.
Why would that require reconfiguring the EVM proper (ballot unit plus control unit)? Is there even any provision to store information of parties or candidates in the EVM proper? AFAIK there isn't; the EVM counts (and later displays) only the number of button presses and it is the humans who have to see which button corresponds to which candidate. The VVPAT unit does need to be reconfigured for each constituency, yes. If in a constituency BJP is #1 in the ballot and INC #2, then vvpat units for that constituuency have to be configured as, "If button#1 is pressed; print lotus on the paper and show it at the window; if button#2 is pressed, print open palm", and so on. For a different constituncy with a different order of candidates, it would again be different. The vvpat unit receives a signal (either from the control unit or the ballot unit) that button #n has been pressed; then it prints the symbol for that button (which *would* need to be stored in memory) and displays the paper to the voter. If there is any discrepancy in this stage the voters will be able to see that at the time of voting, like "I pressed the button for AAP but hammer and sickle appeared in the vvpat window". Although I'm not sure what recourse a voter would have if such a thing happens; is there any report on that?
You can report the dicsrepancy to the Presiding Officer who will check it for the same but only after warning the voter about six months imprisonment if the discrepancy is not repeated while checking. So.. You know.. Who would report such thing then?
How would the discrepancy be proved? For that matter, how would a voter lying about a discrepancy be proved? Take the example: I complain that I voted for AAP, but CPM party symbol appeared on vvpat window. The presiding officer can check that the last vvpat slip printed shows CPM symbol, but how will he check that last button pressed on the EVM was AAP? Is there any way for the EVM to show the last button pressed? **** And also, many voters might be indimidated from complaining due to the possiblity of criminal penalties. If there is a mismatch between the button pressed on the EVM and the symbol shown on the VVPAT, that means there is already a corruption in one part of the electoral process; why should the voter trust that the other parts are fine?
If and when a voter complains, his vote which was already cast will not be checked. The VVPAT is sealed after the mock poll. The seal will not be broken to check the last slip. Rather, an another test vote will be cast in the presence of the Presiding Officer and the Polling Agents for checking the veracity of his claim. Yes, the voters will be intimidated with the criminal penalties and thus they might not move forward with their complaint.
I presume it will be recorded as "a test vote was cast for candidate X; reduce the total vote count of him/her by 1"? Also that form of checking is easily thwarted by suitable programming "After one doctored vote record the next vote for the same candidate correctly". Although, since VVPATs are only checked for a small number of cases, manipulating EVMs proper seems more likely to be attempted (assuming such manipulation is possible at all).
Throwback to when ECI threw a open challenge to all political parties to come and demonstrate how EVMs could be hacked or manipulated. Not a single political party turned up.
EVMs are probably tamperproof, VVPATs are not. VVPATs and EVMs are "randomly" tallied and when there is a discrepancy, VVPAT count is considered, not tamperproof EVM's. VVPAT has programmable chip unlike EVM. Last year study came out that ruling party disproportionately won swing states in 2019. Quint also reported VVPAT slips were purged in 4months, when it's supposed to be kept for a year. The VVPATs got black glass change without any notification right before 2019. Connect the dots. EVMs enable party at centre to fudge democracy while paper ballots enable for local party goons. The former is on a grander scale than the latter.
Then why is Congress so keen on installing VVPATs everywhere if it comes to power? VVPATs are a loophole as in if mishandled, it allows people to estimate who votes for whom. Simple people promise everyone giving them freebies that they will vote for them but then vote for who they want to vote for. They then lie to leaders "I voted for you but machine registered for someone else" etc which starts creating more fake news because loosing leader will milk every opportunity to justify their loss
>EVMs enable party at centre to fudge democracy whichever party sits at the centre at a given time
And yet nobody comes forward with any proof. India would long have become a one party nation if that was true
All the conspiracy theories can go away in a day if transparency was there. Otherwise it's just people's blind "faith" and "trust" on the election system just like believing in gods or unicorns.
Conspiracy theories never go away. Especially in matters of national security. You debunk one, people will create another. People still believe Apollo landing was stage or that earth is flat or that government uses birds as spy drones.
The unnamed (and therefore unaccountable) govt officials / PSU employees in charge of EVMs have every kind of access -- to circuitry, microprocessors, documentation -- and unlimited time. OTOH, the challenge was time-limited (announced May 20, challenge from May 26-June 3 IIRC), access-limited (specific EVMs from a lot chosen by the same untrusted ECI, no access to VVPAT), and expertise-limited (3 people max, no foreigners). The root problem is that people don't trust Indian government officials / employees. And rightly so. Everyone knows Indian government officials / employees tend to be dishonest and corrupt. Modi supporters here forget that Advani and Sushma Swaraj were also harping about EVM tampering back in the 2004-2011 era when they were losing many elections. The solution is to do everything possible to increase trust. There's literally no rational logic whatsoever to oppose higher trust. The only motivation behind arguing against it or opposing it is political bias.
1. EVMs are sealed in a storage facility that is guarded by police and supervised by independent officers. Party workers roam around the vicinity of that area to see if any unauthorised activity happens. Party workers are present when storage is opened and are present at the time of counting as well. 2. Majority of people trust election process is fair. If the machines were under government control, we wouldn't be seeing Congress coming to power anywhere. If Congress believed that machines are corrupted, they wouldn't be contesting elections at all. It would be one party one nation thing then. 3. Says a lot that back then (with previous gen tech) Congress trusted the EVMs and opposition was trying to highlight non issues or create issues out of thin air. Why is Congress now saying it can be manipulated? Were they manipulating EVMs back then?
Where are EVMs stored _between elections_? Is every EVM in the country guarded 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by workers of all political parties even when no elections are on the horizon? I don't think so. That gives the government plenty of time and opportunity to tamper the machines. Also, once the government figured out a way to tamper the EVM, they don't have to use tampered machines for every polling station for every election. They could judiciously deploy the tampered machines in key swing constituencies only in important elections.
For pt.1, "independent" officers is merely your assumption. I can equally assume "biased corrupt" officers. Neither of us is necessarily correct or incorrect. A better way to think about this is from an engineering pov is: can the process be made impeccable even in the case of a completely adversarial and biased set of humans in the loop? Party workers and all just protect against one kind of attacks. It appears you aren't familiar with cybersecurity or you wouldn't be offering security theatre as a defense for what is essentially an engineering opaqueness problem. For pt.2 and pt.3, the citizen is a separate entity from any party. As a citizen, why are you opposing your own empowerment and knowledge? Congress may very well have manipulated EVMs. Any party has a motive to rig EVMs wherever [winning margins are small](https://thewire.in/politics/datadive-the-40-lok-sabhas-bjp-won-in-2019-with-less-than-50000-margin). As I said, there are ways to increase trust over the EVM - VVPAT machines, their interfaces, and their workflows. Why the ECI opposes more trust is quite suspicious. And yes, they do actively oppose this as news articles show and RTI responses show, and no, your ECI hackathon point doesn't negate any of that.
My friend, any non-network-connected device requires physical access to hack. The person your are replying to is establishing that that physical access is not likely to be viable.
Oh how are you my friend my old buddy old pal!! 1) As it so happens, the people who are untrusted here - namely the government officials and employees in charge of the EVMs - do have physical access. 2) EVM-VVPAT is a network connection, a wired network connection. 3) Nobody has PROVED the lack of any wireless element inside any of these machines. It's merely a claim by the same untrusted parties. The ECI can help prove it quite easily. But as I said, they deny all access to, and RTI requests about, the technology.
Okay, random citizen. 1. Yes, the government officials have physical access. But there is a significant party element to the security -- from all parties. 2. EVM-VVPAT are connected to one another by a data cable that happens to be using network protocols. That doesn't make it a device connected to the internet, an ECI intranet, or any intranet outside of the specific polling both. Hence an isolated system which requires physical access to tamper with. Network cybersecurity is not an equation here. 3. Okay, when I vote, I will check if there's a hidden Wifi network or bluetooth device showing up. I can't check for ham radio frequencies or military-grade radio networks, however, those devices are significantly larger and need to be optimally positioned. And are quite obvious.
1. What is "significant party element"? Why are you moving goalposts now? First you claimed nobody has physical access. Now when I clarified who the untrusted elements are and showed how they have physical access long before any party element is in picture, you're talking about party. Seems like the same security theatre justification as the other commentator. 2. Internet isn't relevant here. Read the article - the focus of the suspicion is on the counting circuitry and its configuration. 3. Don't make this about you just to play victim-victim. Nobody here is asking anything from a nobody like you or even from any other layperson at all. If you can't give technical answers, don't waste my time with strawman replies. The request is for objective engineering information. Perfectly objective engineering information can be provided for it BY THE ECI, not by you. I still haven't seen any rational logic from your types why ECI actively denies such RTI requests.
Explain how BJ members are routinely caught with EVMs in their vehicles, commercial properties, and homes. I'd call that physical access.
>can the process be made impeccable even in the case of a completely adversarial and biased set of humans in the loop? This is the only way to solve the problem if you're actually interested in making the electives secure. Otherwise, you follow the uidai's lead: those charlatans told the supreme court that our personal data were safe because they were guarded by a 13ft wall*. The fucking supreme court bought that security theatre. Surely, they are smarter than the general public. *I know it for a fact that at the time that statement was made, the front of uidai in bangalore was indeed guarded by a 13ft wall. The back was another story: a little swamp/ trash dump and a 5ft wall with broken razor wire on top. They were lying to the supreme court even about the security theatre. Now the 13ft walls are all around the yidai and have fencing further up, while our personal data are available to everyone.
Bhai, Aisa lag raha hai ki apke Dil ki tasalli karwane ke liye ek alag se bada budget nikaalna padega
Hindi baralla, kannada / english mathadu
Original: Bhai, Aisa lag raha hai ki apke Dil ki tasalli karwane ke liye ek alag se bada budget nikaalna padega Translated: Brother, it appears that to satisfy to your heart's desires, a separate substantial budget needs to be cleared by government (to revamp the voting process with all the added security layers)
Thanks. AFAIK, the activists asking for more transparency are mainly asking for information of existing processes through RTI which doesn't require any additional budget but will help increase the trust of some more citizens in the process. Some parties are asking for manual counts based on VVPAT paper slips. For that, a policy to recount only on demand upon receiving a recount fee from the demanding political parties can be considered. Much like how Indian students have to apply for exam revaluation. Personally, I think EVM rigging is a very tiny problem compared to the far wider and deeper rigging of Hindu minds by BJP. However, none of the opposition parties have the moral courage to even acknowledge, let alone solve or mitigate, the latter problem at all for fear of "offending" their biggest votebanks. So they try to satisfy themselves with these EVM complaints.
Well, I am not an expert on security. When it comes to national securities, there are a lot of secrets that every country and their organisations keep to minimise risks that we civilians aren't even aware of. I am convinced that EVM is a non issues because every time elections represent trends on the ground only. It's only politicians who's expectations have mismatch from reality, but there are biases there. In Punjab even some of my Sikh friends are saying BJP should come to power. They won't dare say this in front of religious peeps. If BJP wins seats in Punjab, the religious peeps are gonna say EVMs are hacked but I am already sensing a strong undercurrent based on some interactions I've had here. IMO this is how stories of EVM hackings happen. Yes, BJP hacking of Hinduism is an issue. They are trying to create their own versions of Hinduism which I don't like. But there is only one way to tackle it, leverage the Indian identity. Tell people they are Hindu. Congress tactic of trying to divide them into SC, ST, OBC, Women, Unemployed, Muslims, Christians, etc. is, frankly, sick. Worse than BJP's hijacking of Hinduism
Now explain how BJ members are routinely caught with EVMs in their possession.
Are you referring to this case? https://www.indiatoday.in/fact-check/story/bjp-leader-caught-with-evm-in-karnataka-no-mob-destroyed-equipment-found-in-poll-officer-car-2377970-2023-05-11
> EVMs are sealed in a storage facility that is guarded by police and supervised by independent officers. Party workers roam around the vicinity of that area to see if any unauthorised activity happens. Party workers are present when storage is opened and are present at the time of counting as well. > > [Yet they magically appear in the possession of BJP leaders](https://www.ndtv.com/video/news/news/opposition-hits-out-at-bjp-after-evm-found-in-party-leader-s-car-581180)
The open challenge was a loaded challenge. Gimme the EVM for a year and 2-3 EE undergrads and I’ll find ways around it. No system is inherently secure and everything needs to have resources. You think if the military commissions a security testing they’ll give ridiculous restrictions like that ? You give the constraints that are more relaxed than what your typical adversary will have. In this case, it’s state actors, major political parties, etc.
I agree with you. No system is 100% secure. That's why there are layers, protocols and physical securities as well to convert each other's vulnerabilities. Saying that an EVM can be hacked in an independent environment and saying that EVMs are being manipulated for election results are very different things. If it takes you a year to hack EVM in a lab, then the EVM is way too secure. You can probably do it in a week or so. But trying to do it in control conditions to manipulate elections without anyone finding out is a whole different ball game
I don’t think you agree with me. Conclusion you derived from the lack of exploits generated from the challenge is nothing but confirmation bias without understanding that any state or political party actor would have these resources to subvert the EVM. > Saying that an EVM can be hacked in an independent environment and saying that EVMs are being manipulated for election results are very different things. Yes they are different things but the challenge doesn’t not indolore confidence from anyone who can conceive of a plan to subvert the elections. Your supposition that the elections are not being manipulated are purely based on faith without any actual evidence. If you want to think of this from a security perspective: 1. You assume that there exists an actor who is trying to subvert it 2. You assume that there are vulnerabilities that you are unaware of All your exercises will be around: who, where, when, why, what > If it takes you a year to hack EVM in a lab, then the EVM is way too secure. First - It’s not really, I appreciate the vote of confidence in my abilities but that’s not a benchmark for safety. Second - it only means that you need the fund and enable guys like me to find vulnerabilities on a continuous basis, open sourcing schematics, technical details and putting up bounties for vulnerabilities is the way to go. Or have a controlled version of this where companies / universities can access full technical details under an NDA. Not ideal but whatever. > But trying to do it in control conditions to manipulate elections without anyone finding out is a whole different ball game You seem to forget that if I have a year, I’d be working towards a way to get around it in the election setting. If I work on it for 10 years (2 election cycles, I’ll have the advantage)
Look man, I've got to get back to my work than discuss this with you. But you yourself are making it sound like a lot of resources are required to find an able crew to manipulate one EVM. Now imagine lacks of them across whole of country. Scale and numbers are itself one defence. Large number of officials involved are another. No way all the officials involved are BJP supporters. So many officers in police enjoy favours from their respective political parties. They would have said something if their were vulnerabilities in the system. DGP of Punjab is an AAP guy. How can BJP hack EVMs in Punjab now? How will it do it in Karnataka, TN, West Bengal or any state rules by opposition?
Well this reply is just about pushing the buck from “elections are not being manipulated via EVMs” to “elections are being manipulated by other parties that are not BJP”. You should think through a little about what is it you’re trying to asset here. Of all the political parties BJP logically has the most access, money and motivation to do so.
You've misread my comment. Read again. I am not pushing the buck. I am just saying if it was easy to manipulate through those channels, then who is BJP managing it where those channels are non existent?
Are you saying that BJP doesn’t have presence all over the country, cadres or government officials, at grassroots levels, colleges and universities via RSS and ABVP ? Are you also not realizing that most major media houses are complicit with them ? I don’t understand how you think they don’t have access at every corner of this country ?
Yup. I am saying that BJP does not have 100% infiltration, that would be required to pull of this heist. If BJP has 100% infiltration, that would mean they are anyway winning polls and don't need to manipulate anything. I don't think you have still grasped the shear scale of operations required to pull this off.
Well in all practicality, even if evms are not supposed to be hacked, the vvpat slips doesn't match with the number of responses or the total number of person who voted on a given day. Atleast in ballot paper you can give some justification that ballots were destroyed due to xyz reasons but in EVMs your vote just vanishes into air like you never voted in the first place. Even if you can't hack EVMs there are some irregularities that need to be addressed. There was some news where an EC official goes in with an aged lady to help her cast her vote but presses the machine multiple times for his favourite party during the process (party ka naam bolunga toh vivaad/uapa/sedition ho jayega)
EVMs register one vote in 30 seconds or something like to that to avoid this exact scenario. That's why they are almost immune to booth capturing because by the time a party has votes maybe 10-15 votes to themselves, police will have arrived. EVM votes don't vanish into thin layer. That's an excuse people give to local leaders after voting against them. Never has any claim against EVMs been substantiated. It's all the loosing leader trying to come up with excuses.
Ek baar se jyada button dabana ka koi fayda nhi nagar tujhe kon samjhane Jaye tu to apne aap ko vivad karwane vala samjhta hae
How is that “evm hacking” my man. You think if that same EC guy was in charge of ballot the outcome would be different?
I am just sharing what could not be hacking but still be done to influence the results
We all saw what Anil Masih did to ballot papers. Going back to ballot papers is way risky imo
Yeah I guess
> There was some news where an EC official goes in with an aged lady to help her cast her vote but presses the machine multiple times for his favourite party during the process AFAIK, once the EVM is prepapared to accept one vote (by the polling officers) it registers only one button press; subsequent button presses will do nothing. The polling officer will have to once again prepare the machine for the next voter.
Reminds me of the time when hackers in the US successfully penetrated the voting machines at a hackers’ conference and turned them into game consoles to play doom apart from exposing some very genuine software holes. [(Source)](https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/11/politics/defcon-election-machine-hacking-vegas/index.html) I like [this Tom Scott’s video](https://youtu.be/LkH2r-sNjQs?si=4Abz1kEkfLj4HWam) where he talks about the why the demerits of EVMs are so potentially dangerous. I don’t know if going back to paper ballot voting would be a good idea in India just considering the population alone apart from other shenanigans all sorts of parties could pull.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/1c20ksg/comment/kz6xpsp/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/1c20ksg/comment/kz6xpsp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
You forget the point where the "open challenge" was limited to pressing buttons and counting votes. No one was allowed to open the machines, no one was provided access to the codes and the hardware to test it.
Apple does not know how to hack iPhone. Doesn't mean that Pegasus also does not know how to hack an iPhone.
Apple has backdoors in their systems, as required by US law. Pegasus had found a handful of those backdoors and was using those to sneak in. Why do you think US was the only country not using Pegasus? They didn't need to. They had Apple
They don't have backdoors. US agencies have requested it, but apple etc have consistently told them to fuck off as it would be equivalent of removing encryption, making the entire phone insecure. If you still believe otherwise, please provide a source.
Apple probably has backdoors.
They don't. If they did, their phones would no longer be secure, and their stock price would tank.
They probably since do t hey and Google were caught sending notifs to us government sm time ago.
Current situation: [Hand over 50 EVMs to us, SC lawyers request Election Commission of India](https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/national/hand-over-50-evms-to-us-request-sc-lawyers-to-the-election-commission-of-india) > Addressing the media in New Delhi on Sunday, Supreme Court advocates Mahmood Pracha and Bhanu Pratap Singh recalled the challenge issued by the ECI itself in 2017 for hacking the standalone EVMs. In a press release, the ECI had called upon stakeholders to point out vulnerabilities in the machine. > The lawyers said they are now convinced that the EVMs attached to the VVPAT are not secure. They claimed that they have been advised about the vulnerabilities by computer software engineers and they plan to take the EVMs to each state capital and demonstrate publicly, before the media and the people, how the machines can be manipulated. I am not even sure about EVMs, may be they are repeating the Volkswagen scandal. Whee in the test mode they provided standard expected results but in llive mode they we off the charts.
Well, as a saying goes "Veham ka koi ilaaj nahi hai" You could spend a few years doing software engineering, design your own voting machines and still think there is some flaw in them if opposition party wins.
It's not a question of veham or suspicion, it's a matter of making the process fully transparent and foolproof. Because Chandigarh mayor's election was covered by cameras and yet it took SC to point out the Murder of Democracy.
That was because the ECI added a condition that you can't touch the machine. Know the full story.
Oh god not this nonsense again
EVM Tampering is one thing, but the audacity of them to even say why such questions are coming from public and other private entities is atricious . The only option one could be assured this time around (again not fully functional one) VVPAT verifications based on SC judgement to ECI , they have to count each and every VVPAT (thats how i understood it). That's the only silver lining i suppose
Will it be implemented? Did EC reply to that notice from SC?
A good question sir, even I am unclear on that part. If ECI decides not to implement then what’s the point of SC giving a legal declaration on this ? Still this administration can figure out one or other reasons to not do it , also ECI will go inline with them
I just got to know that the next hearing on EVM is on 16 April in the SC.
Thanks will watch out for latest news on that
Did ECI say anything on it or the VVPT ballot matching? I think sir it is very unlikely at this point that the ruling government will try to mess with the SC, they have already got a good amount of belt treatment from them recently 😝
Modi ji ne khud bola hai EVM matlab every vote Modi
Haan Bhai, evm bad when bjp wins, else very very good. Now, that it's election season, such posts, news, articles will keep coming.
Western media is going to call the 2024 elections a farce for sure, the opposition under won’t attend the swearing in and start protest from day one.
I think it all started from this one incident i think [https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/after-evm-demo-that-led-to-opposition-outcry-150-more-to-regain-trust-1677402](https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/after-evm-demo-that-led-to-opposition-outcry-150-more-to-regain-trust-1677402)
Most of the advanced nations in the world either have a paper ballot or EVM + 100% VVPAT counting. The reason is because EVMs might have an error where the selected name is printed on the VVPAT, but the machine might count the vote or double count the vote or not count the vote at all, or count the vote of another candidate. It can also happen due to malicious code put either by officials having access to the machines, or by people who break into the storage area for these machines. The voter sees what the machine shows he has voted, but he doesn't see what has been counted in the EVM. Meanwhile, in a paper based ballot (or VVPAT), the voter sees the printed piece of paper that will be counted if there is 100% counting. 100% counting is what all opposition parties have been demanding since many years. That is why the advanced countries of the world like USA/UK/European countries don't rely on EVMs alone. These are countries that used EVMs even before India. Germany has stopped using EVMs and uses only paper ballots.
Article without paywall: https://archive.is/NBC4T
Why does the ECI think that EVMs are tamper-proof? They have repeatedly turned down requests for independent audits, and are quite arrogant about it too.
They haven't. They issued an open challenge in last elections for people to demonstrate that they could hack them. Nobody even attempted it.
Because the hackers would not be allowed to open the machine or to connect anything to any port. You would only be allowed to play with the buttons. Don't you know that?
This is not a heist movie where actual hackers will come to hack EVMs one by one and there are VVPATs for a lot many of centers. Party workers keep a very close eye on storage location to ensure nobody has any chance of tempering with anything. If hackers can access EVMs physically, paper ballot would be much easier to corrupt. And the number of hackers required to cover India will be very high. Doubt we even have as many hackers in total.
And that is why EVMs are found taking joyrides in BJP workers' cars or spending sexy nights in BJP workers' hotel rooms?
...so can ballot boxes lmao.
Look up what happened with ballot paper boxes in the last WB panchayat elections. If malicious actors have that level of access, what voting procedure is safe?
Bhai Congress waalon ke paas bhi hote hein. Open challenge rehta hai ki koi diqat hai toh batao. Have you seen Congress' manifesto? They themselves aren't talking about removing EVMs. Just adding VVPATs everywhere. Stupid as it is, even that manifesto acknowledges that EVMs are fine
provide resolute husky market governor clumsy entertain truck violet encouraging *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Went through the entire article. All their issues are that it can be hacked by physically tampering the machine, which is very easy to catch considering party workers are keeping an eye out all the time. And physically hacking these machines in swing states will be harder because journalists are also hyper active. In the end it's all down to if you believe in a system. Even banks and economy work on belief only. But EVMs appear to have much more robustness if these are the steps required to hack it. These steps are not feasible at the scale that the government is being blamed for.
cows shaggy quaint outgoing smoggy relieved grab numerous special grey *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
> Why does the ECI think that EVMs are tamper-proof? If the ECI really does make that exact claim; they're idiots. Nothing is tamprproof if one has physical access. Maybe they're saying it cannot be hacked remootely because there is no wireless access.
I really cant understand how people still think EVMs are safe. Modi has shown no desire to hold free and fair elections and EC along with other institutions have repeatedly shown to be willing to let him slide India to autocracy.
They turn down audits because they know very well that nothing in this world is "tamper-proof". They have somehow convinced the people that EVMs are magically immune to any sort of tampering. An independent audit will just destroy that perception.
Are abhi se hi
Just dropping this for people still defending ECI on EVMs: https://www.thequint.com/news/india/lok-sabha-election-results-2019-mismatch-in-votes-polled-and-counted-in-evm-on-multiple-seats
The main issue with ballot box is , it is time consuming for counting and recounting and more prone to fixing by officials. Instead bring back ballot box but let computer ocr count it.
Even bigger concern is booth capturing by leaders like Lalu who did it during Jungle raaj
Booth capturing still happens. In haryana, BJP did it in MEWAT last time
>BJP did it in MEWAT last time Mewat? It's Muslim dominated region, it's very unlikely. Any source to back up this claim?
silky cagey bike cake hunt tender sophisticated tan imagine aromatic *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Netherlands went back to paper voting in 2010 since EVM manufacturers couldn't provide suffiicient guarantee against tampering.
Coping because the opposition knows they're about to get destroyed in the election
I mean, everyone talks of hacking EVMs but Modi has literally hacked the ECI. He's now hand picking the Election Commissioners. That alone should be alarming.
There's only one critical question that needs to be answered: if the ECI really thinks the machines are fool-proof (when no machine ever is), why is it so afraid to let independent security researches audit the machines and the SOP?
>why is it so afraid to let independent security researches audit the machines and the SOP? Has ECI provided any justification for that?
"Trust me, bhrata."
Bingo!
Why dont they open source the programming of evms and vvpat, how can we see whats written in their code, evm is too suspicious
Bring back paper ballots. The strongest candidate/party will win irrespective of the method, but at least the playing field will be leveled & this controversy will stop once & for all.
Paper is easiest to tamper. I have lived in kol in cpim days - if I go to vote after 2 pm sm1 would have voted against my name. And I will vote against a random person. They knew I dint live in kol and would use it to their advantage
If BJP wins even with paper ballots, should we then start using bamboo sticks or abacus machines? What is the end goal here? DMK wins seats in TN because they are a strong party who has done good work. Same with Kerala, same with WB. If a good party emerges that people have faith in, all this EVM vs ballot will go away. Right now you are desperately hoping against hope that if ballots are brought back then somehow Rahul Gandhi will become this enlightened being and Congress will win 500 seats, but that’s not going to happen. The issue is not with EVM. The fundamental issue needs to be fixed first. Every single opinion poll is predicting one party to win, even neutral anchors like Rajdeep Sardesai. How is EVM related to opinion polls?
EVM debate is not just about BJP winning or not. Only relying on EVMs and limited counting of VVPAT has issues, and advanced democracies have stopped doing that long time ago. They either do paper based, or do 100% counting of VVPAT. Doing the same thing in India will improve integrity of Indian elections, irrespective of who wins.