The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday trashed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s demonstration of how electronic voting machines (EVM) can be tampered and saying ‘the machine hacked in the Delhi Assembly was a “look-alike” gadget and not actual equipment used by it.
“It is possible for anyone to make any electronic gadget which ‘looks-like’ ECI EVM and demonstrate any magic. It is common sense that gadgets other than ECI-EVMs can be programmed to perform in a pre-determined way, but it simply cannot be implied that ECI-EVMs will behave in the same manner because they are technically secured and function under an elaborate administrative and security protocol,” the Commission said in a statement.
The “so-called” demonstration on “extraneous and duplicate gadgets” which are not owned by the EC “cannot be exploited to influence our intelligent citizens and electorate to assail or vilify the EVMs used by the Commission in its electoral process,” it added.
Earlier, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had dared the ECI
to provide an electronic voting machine (EVM) to the AAP, claiming it can be tampered with in “90 seconds flat”.
ECI had earlier released a detailed Status Paper to facilitate threadbare discussions and deliberations on the alleged issue of rigging and manipulation of EVMs.
Asserting that the Indian EVMs stands as one of the “most credible, non-tamperable and transparent machines,” the paper says, “Till date, no one could actually demonstrated that EVMs in possession of EC and used by it, can be tampered with or manipulated. What has been demonstrated or claimed to have been demonstrated is on a privately assembled “look-alike of ECI-EVMs.”
The Status Paper gave a detailed overview on how the EVMs are based on a robust technology that cannot be broken into and are administered under tight security that does allow anybody to play a mischief.
The Commission has scheduled an all political parties meeting on May 12, for EVM issues and other electoral reforms.