Amid a slew of allegations by the Opposition about the reliability of EVMs, Delhi’s Chief Electoral Officer Ranbir Singh has said that the machines are “absolutely foolproof” and fulfil all “transparency and administrative protocols”.
Singh said the EVM is "robust by design" and there is no way the machine can be tampered with. "There is no way that the machine can be tampered with, manipulated or hacked into because it does not have connectivity with the outside world.
"It does not have internet, wi-fi or bluetooth connectivity. This means you cannot access the mind of the machine. It has a onetime programmable chip," Singh told PTI.
The Aam Aadmi Party Monday asked the Election Commission to provide additional security at a counting centre in South Delhi, alleging that political opponents plan to manipulate EVMs ahead of the announcement of poll results on May 23.
The letter by AAP's South Delhi candidate and spokesperson Raghav Chadha said that "he has strong reasons to believe that the political adversaries will attempt to open the strong rooms and manipulate or replace the machines as a handful of such incidents have been seen in the past".
Singh said the machines are manufactured by Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), which are the PSUs with highest security protocols and are programmed there.
"If somebody tries to alter the programme, the machine vibrates a lot and it switches off and becomes dead. From the time the machine is manufactured to the time it reaches a particular state, it has fool-proof security with personnel from the states it passes through guarding it," he said.
Singh said the representatives from political parties are present right from the time the warehousing is done for EVMs till the time they reach the polling stations.
"When the warehousing is done, it is done in the presence of representatives of the candidates. They are kept safely, sealed and the signatures of the representatives are taken on the seal.
"Whenever the First Level Check (FLC) of the machine happens in which they check whether the machine is working or not, that is also done in the presence of representatives of the political party," he added.