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After hours of counting votes, Pakistan has nonetheless not formally introduced the outcomes of the final election held on February 8. Pakistan President Arif Alvi held the dearth of an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) answerable for this uncommon delay. In a publish on X on Saturday, Alvi stated, “Had EVMs been there today, my dear beloved Pakistan would have been spared this crisis (of poll result delay).”
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“EVM had paper ballots that could be counted separately by hand (like it is being done today) BUT it also had a simple electronic calculator/counter of each vote button pressed. Totals of every candidate would have been available & printed within five minutes of the closing of the poll. The entire effort that included more than 50 meetings at the Presidency alone was scuttled,” Arif Alvi tweeted.
Moreover, there have been a number of claims about elections being rigged in Pakistan regardless of the usage of poll papers for voting.
An Electronic Voting Machine or EVM is a tool used to electronically document and depend votes forged in elections. It consists of the Ballot Unit (BU ), Control Unit (CU) and the later added Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT). The VVPAT permits voters to confirm that their votes are forged as supposed.
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So, ought to Indian political leaders pay attention to this EVM concern flagged by Alvi? Over the years, many politicians in India have criticised the usage of EVMs for polling throughout basic and meeting elections. They have accused others of either hacking or tampering with EVMs. The debate over the usage of EVMs Vs VVPAT slips Vs poll papers has been occurring in India for an extended.
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Congress chief Digvijaya Singh had said final yr that he has “opposed voting by EVM since 2003”. He argued that “any machine with a chip can be hacked”. He slightly demanded the handover of “the VVPAT slip in voter’s hand and allow him to see that the vote has also been correctly “printed””. He had said this in response to a suggestion that “counting of 100% VVPATs” must be there. It “gained’t take greater than a day,” the X person had stated.
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav has additionally pushed for the usage of poll papers as an alternative of EVMs for voting. According to information company PTI, Akhilesh Yadav referred to EVMs with out naming it and stated that “these machines” and the (poll) results have created a feeling of distrust in people’s minds.
Congress leader Manish Tewari also called for voting on paper ballots during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. He reportedly said that EVM is a machine and can be rigged and hacked.
But can EVMs be manipulated? Here’s what India’s Election Commission says
The Election Commission says that EVMs are electronic machines and like any other machine, they are also vulnerable to failures. The failed machines are sent to the factories for rectification.
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The Election Commission adds that there is no question of any machine ‘malfunctioning’ in a way so as to favour a particular candidate, which is called tampering as per defined EVM protocol. “This situation is simply not doable with the numerous safeguards incorporated in the design of EVM itself,” the poll body says.
It further says, “There isn’t any wastage of any vote in EVMs.”
The Election Commission also provides a clarification on whether “there any provision for a Voter to lodge a grievance if the paper slip generated by VVPAT exhibits the title or image of a candidate aside from the one he voted for“.
It says that as per the provisions of Rule 49MA of Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, the Presiding Officer obtains a written declaration from the voter as to the allegation, after informing the elector about the consequence of making a false declaration as per the Indian Penal Code.
“If the elector offers the written declaration referred to in sub-rule (1) of Rule 49MA, the Presiding Officer permits the elector to document a check vote within the voting machine in his/her presence and within the presence of the candidates or polling brokers who could also be current within the polling station, and observe the paper slip generated by the printer,” the EC says.
“If the allegation is discovered true, the Presiding Officer will report the info instantly to the Returning Officer, cease additional recording of votes in that voting machine and act as per the instructions which may be given by the Returning Officer,” it adds.
And if the allegation is found to be false and the paper slip so generated under sub-rule (1) matches with the test vote recorded by the elector under sub-rule (2), then, the Presiding Officer shall “make an observation to that impact in opposition to the second entry regarding that elector in Form 17A, Rule 49L”.
He then must mention the serial number and name of the candidate for whom such test vote has been recorded; Obtain the signature or thumb impression of that elector against such remarks; and make necessary entries regarding such test vote in item 5 in Part I of Form 17C.
What experts have said
EVM experts told the Wire that while EVMs cannot be hacked, because they are not connected to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or the Internet, they can be easily manipulated. Madhav Deshpande, a former CEO of Tulip Software, said in an interview in January this year that there are “holes and gaps within the system” as EVMs are “counting on an previous know-how”.
ALSO READ: EVMs may be under a cloud in India but more than 20 nations use them
However, the Election Commission of India (ECI) had earlier assured the Supreme Court that EVMs can neither be hacked nor tampered with. In an affidavit spanning over 450 pages, the EC had said EVMs are “totally stand-alone machines having one-time programmable chips”.
In 2017, the then Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi had stated, “…our machines are tamper-proof, if you change the internal circuit of our machines, then they aren’t our machines…”
Besides, the Times of India had cited a report by a committee of consultants shaped by the ballot panel as saying that tampering is barely doable with bodily entry and the flowery sealing means of EVMs executed by by the ECI prevents this from occurring.
Upsides of EVM
A analysis paper confirmed that the change to digital voting in India virtually eradicated invalid votes: “This end result stems instantly from the design of the machine: Indian EVMs, with their finite menu of buttons, make it virtually not possible to forged an invalid poll,” a researcher had said.
Moreover, another recent research paper suggested the introduction of EVMs not only helped reduce election fraud but also helped improve development outcomes by empowering poor and marginal voters. Tap here to read the use of EVMs in details
Here’s your complete 3-minute abstract of all of the issues Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated in her Budget speech: Click to download!
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Published: 10 Feb 2024, 09:20 PM IST
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