The Election Commission has invited all the seven national and 49 State parties to participate in the challenge to prove that its Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) can be tampered with. The EC has sent letters to all the seven national parties — the BJP, the BSP, the Congress, the CPI, the CPI-M, the NCP and the TMC — and 49 State parties, including the AAP. Earlier, the EC had said that it would invite all the national and State-recognised parties which had contested the recent Assembly polls. Some of these parties had alleged that the EVMs were tampered with.
The BSP and the AAP were the first to question the reliability of the EVMs. The BSP, along with several other parties, had urged the EC to revert to the paper ballot system saying the faith of the people has eroded in the machines. As the AIADMK, now has two factions recognised by the panel, both have been invited for the challenge.
But the EC has kept out smaller registered but unrecognised parties and Independent candidates who contested polls in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur. Each party will get four EVMs of their choice from the five States and get four hours to hack. Each team can have a maximum of three persons. But foreign experts have been barred from participating. The challenge begins on June 3.
"The representatives of the political parties are at liberty to witness the opening of EVM Strong-rooms at the District/AC level where the EVMs are presently stored, inspect the machines for the various seals (as in protocol) and accompany the machines during their transportation to ECI in sealed trunks, if they so desire.
As these EVMs were used in the recently held elections and were stored post-counting, the EVMs would still have the candidate setting and the result of the said election," the EC said.
According to EC, the Challenger under Challenge — one shall be deemed to have failed if EVM becomes non-functional after the tamper attempt made by the Challenger. (Reason: ECI EVMs are designed to go into error mode if any unwarranted technical operations are conducted rather than recording any wrong results).
"The challenger deemed to have failed if the EVM is functional and results displayed on the Control Unit after conduct of challenge attempt are the same as ECI declared results stored on the chosen CU (prior to the pressing of ClEAR Button) and If the Challenger violates any of the guidelines prescribed for the EVM Challenge or the challenger withdraws from current challenge," sources said.
In challenge two: the challenger shall be deemed to have ''failed'' if EVM becomes non-functional after the tamper attempt made by the Challenger. (Reason: ECI EVMs are designed to go into error mode if any unwarranted technical operations are conducted rather than recording any wrong results) or the EVM remains functional and after erasing the earlier stored result, a mock poll or full poll is conducted by the Challenger along with his challenge attempt and manually recorded votes(by ECI staff) are the same as that stored on the chosen CU after the said mock/full poll.
The challenger in challenge two shall be deemed to have failed if the challenger violates any of the guidelines prescribed for the EVM Challenge or the challenger withdraws from current challenge.