EVMs must be above suspicion

Address the continuing distrust on EVMs

A petition in the Supreme Court on the functioning of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), on which the court has sent a notice to the Election Commission of India (ECI), is yet another sign of the continuing distrust of the machines. Those who have raised the questions include individuals, political parties, and even organisations with some standing. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has recently said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cannot win an election without the help of the EVMs, and that the coming elections are a fixed match. The latest petition is for a direction from the court for mandatory cross-verification of the count in the EVMs with votes recorded as cast by Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips. Currently, only some randomly selected EVMs are verified through VVPAT paper slips. The petition has also sought simultaneous VVPAT verification, a facility for dropping the VVPAT slip in a ballot box, and a direction to the ECI to make the glass of the VVPAT machine transparent.

Recently, the questions about the EVMs have mostly centred on using the VVPATs. Many of those who raised the questions have said that they are not against the use of the EVMs, but want to ensure that there is no possibility of their manipulation. The EVMs have been proved, through many elections, to be reliable and tamperproof. The ECI has held sessions to demonstrate that the machines work well in all conditions. The charge that they can be hacked with advanced technology has not been substantiated. The EVMs are not networked and are allotted randomly to constituencies and polling booths. The malfunctioning of a few machines out of many lakhs cannot be considered a sign of a problem in the system. It should be noted that Opposition parties have also won many elections after the introduction of the EVMs. Many of the complaints have been made by parties when they lost an election, or when they expect to lose one.

However, complaints about electoral practices and procedures, and suggestions for improvement are always legitimate, and need to be acted upon in a democracy. Though the EVMs are standalone units they become part of a system after the introduction of the VVPAT. There is merit in the demand for counting of all VVPAT slips; but the ECI has said that that would be as good as reintroducing ballot papers, and would delay the counting process. There should not be any room for doubts about the process, and the ECI should take all steps to remove suspicions and complaints about the EVMs and the process. Elections should not only be free and fair but should be seen to be so.