Hyderabad, May 10: When political parties are gearing up for the upcoming byelections in Telangana, an NGO, VeTA – Verifiability, Transparency and Accountability – has demonstrated that electronic voting machines (EVMs) can be easily tampered with.
Members of VeTA, at a press conference here showed the various methods that can be used to tamper an EVM. Interestingly, the exercise was conducted in the presence of a few political leaders, who lost the general elections last year.
Using a few tools, the members said, election results can be altered by manipulating the data inside an EVM. “Of the many tools available, EVMs can be manipulated using a device called `fraudster’. It will act like a remote and the data in the EVMs can be altered,’’ managing director of NETINDIA Hari K Prasad said.
Similarly, the chips inside the EVMs can be replaced during different stages of jumbling process of EVMs. “Hence, there is no transparency in the existing elections conducted using EVMs. A voter is not sure whether the vote he cast for a party candidate actually went in his favour. That is why we demand that the Election Commission come up with a fool-proof system which acknowledges the voter that the vote went in favour of the person to whom he had voted,’’ G V L Narasimha Rao, a psephologist said.
When the members tried to put their point across to the Election Commission that EVMs can be tampered, the latter did not take them seriously until a few months ago.
“Based on the directions of chief election commissioner Navin Chawla, an EVM was given to the members of VeTA and asked them to tamper it in support of their claim on September 3 last year. When we started to demonstrate the loopholes, the officials left midway saying that they would inspect tampering of the machine at a later date,’’ Hari Prasad said.
He said that VeTA has been taking up this exercise to bring to the notice of Election Commission to make appropriate changes in the machines.
“We are not against the usage of EVMs in the elections. What we are asking the EC is to make the EVMs tamper-proof,’’ Hari Prasad added.
Responding to the demonstration, BJP leader N V S S Prabhakar, who lost his election, said that several irregularities in respect of functioning of EVMs were noticed during the election.
“This is nothing but a wholse-sale rigging,’’ Prabhakar said.
Topudurthi Prakash Reddy, Congress party candidate from Raptadu, Anantapur district, said that it might be true that there is scope for manipulation of EVMs. But making a campaign against the EVMs will derail the confidence of the people in the system.
How an EVM can be tampered
* One method to tamper an EVM involves replacing a chip with another chip that can be instructed to steal a percentage of votes in favour of a chosen candidate. These instructions can be sent from a mobile phone.
* A pocket-sized monitor device can be used to change the votes stored in the EVMs between the election time and counting session.
* VeTA members said two websites-Indianevm.
com and Indiaevm.org- has details about the research done to prove how EVMs can be manipulated.
—Agencies