AAP seeks all-party probe in the alleged tampering of EVMs
- by Andrea Singleton
- in Global
- — May 15, 2017
The day-long meeting, which started with the opening remarks of Chief Election Commission Nasim Zaidi, was expected to seek views of political parties on the proposed challenge it plans to throw to hack its EVMs. The meeting on Friday was attended by 55 national and regional parties, of which 16 have urged the Commission to return to ballot papers.
With a dummy EVM, Saurabh had claimed in the Delhi Assembly that it was very easy to tamper any EVM. "This will happen towards the end of the month". Is our EVM is safe that no one can tamper it?
Sisodia also said in the all-party meeting every leader said that they were against the use of money and muscle power in elections.
Several major opposition parties had claimed the faith of people in the machines has eroded. "In randomly picked 25 per cent of total polling booths in a constituency, EVM counting results must be tallied with the VVPAT slips to check the accuracy of the EVM machines", the AAP's memorandum of demands said.
"Such so called demonstration on extraneous and duplicate gadgets which are not owned by the ECI can not 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.
The Election Commission, on the other hand, reiterated that the EVMs used by it were tamperproof.
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ECI officer made a detailed presentation on EVM security features.
"The Election Commission has to take a call". While senior Congress leader P Chidambaram claimed that nearly every political party has protested against the use of EVMs, senior advocate Kapil Sibal said Congress will also intervene in the matter saying "every technology can be hacked" and this was a cause of serious concern.
One of the protesters said, "We want the ECI to wake up and amend the machine. We are not in favor of EVM that is what we are asking the introduction of ballot papers", Roy said. However, the only way to secure these against manipulations is to have a paper trail system. I hope the Election Commission answers all questions. Yesterday, AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj had provided a live demo in the Delhi assembly to show that EVMs can be easily hacked. "Our stand is clear". We are satisfied. The VVPAT will ensure greater transparency. "We will raise the issue at Friday's meeting", he told a press conference.
While BJP, CPI, CPI (M), AIADMK, DMK, NCP and JD (U) clearly supported use of EVMs, provided paper trail machines are attached to it, BSP, AAP, Trinamool Congress said the paper ballot system was better and more transparent.
Three representatives from each political party are allowed.
According to sources, some political parties have brought their technical expert along with them. The party has blamed "EVM tampering" for its recent electoral losses. EVMs can be easily hacked by small engineers.
