Election Commission to hold EVM (vote machine) demo amid tampering allegations
Highlights
- Demo will be to prove that voting machines can't be tampered with
- Election Commission likely to announce 'EVM hackathon' date
- Election Commission had met all parties last week to discuss EVM issue
Amid a debate over EVMs or Electronic Voting Machines, the Election Commission will hold a live demo today to prove that the machines cannot be tampered with. A nearly two-hour demo will be held on the sidelines of a press conference at the Vigyan Bhawan in Delhi.
The powerful election body is also likely to announce dates for its EVM "challenge" to those who have alleged that the machines have been rigged in recent elections to favour the ruling BJP. On Friday, the Election Commission had told a parliamentary standing committee that the EVMs used by them are
tamper-proof and reliable.
Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress have been the loudest in suggesting that EVMs were manipulated in the state polls as well as Delhi civic elections to ensure that most votes went to the BJP, no matter what the voter chose.
Last week, after the Election Commission met all political parties to discuss a range of subjects including EVMs,
AAP claimed its proposal of holding a 'hackathon' has been "rejected" by the Commission.
At a special session of the Delhi Assembly earlier this month, AAP claimed that it had cracked the code for hacking EVMs and also gave a demo - but on a prototype.
AAP said the gadget it used was built by IIT grads and there was "not even 1 per cent difference" between the prototype and actual voting machines.
Opposition parties have told the Commission that it should revert to the paper ballot system as people's faith has eroded in the machines. The Commission recently clarified that the next general election in 2019 will use only upgraded machines that offer instant evidence of the vote recorded by printing a paper receipt that is visible before it drops into a sealed box.