EC vouches for EVMs, rejects parties' charges

AAP, BSP cast aspersions on functioning of devices

The Election Commission continued to vouch for the electronic voting machines’ credibility, even as the AAP joined the BSP to cast aspersions on the functioning of the
devices.

The commission said that it had been successfully using the EVMs since 2000 in every election, and had ‘full confidence in the absolute credibility’ of the machines.
The poll panel also noted that the credibility of the EVMs had been successfully recognised by the courts on several occasions.

Officials pointed out that the EVMs were mechanically and electronically designed to prevent any tampering or manipulation. The programmes used in the EVMs were burnt into a one-time programmable or masked chips (hardware) so that they could not be altered or tampered with, they explained.

The possibility of data corruption is almost zero since the machines were not networked either by wire or by wireless to any other machine or system, the officials argued.
The BSP is set to move the court with its allegation that the BJP had managed to have a landslide victory in the Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand by tampering with a large number of EVMs.

Harish Rawat, outgoing chief minister of Uttarakhand, too, echoed BSP supremo Mayawati’s views that vote-tampering might have helped the BJP defeat his party —
Congress.

AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also charged that the EVM tampering by his opponents might have ensured the party’s poor performance in Punjab.
Back in 2009 BJP veteran L K Advani, too,  had expressed doubts on the credibility of the EVMs in 2009.

His plea to bring back ballot papers to conduct elections had been echoed by the JD(S) and the CPM.

The poll panel officials on Wednesday noted that the software of the EVMs was developed in-house by Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronic Corporation of India Limited — public sector undertakings under the ministry of defence and department of atomic energy.

The vote could be recorded by an elector on the ballot unit only after the presiding officer of the polling booth would enable the ballot on the control unit. The machine would not receive any signal from outside at any time, said an official of the poll panel.