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JOURNEY OF EVMs AMIDST CONTROVERSIES
Earlier paper ballot system was used for voting in elections, however it has various problems like printing issues, safe storage and transportation and enormous expenditure in completion of the procedure. Even the Election commission developed mechanism to tackle these problems, but the biggest of all these problems was vote counting. It involved a lot of time as well as human resource. In order to fight all these problems, a new technology known as Electronic Voting Machine in short EVM was introduced in electoral system during 1980s. However from the very beginning, it was under fierce criticism.
India is a democratic country with the chief attribute being universal adult suffrage and the voting rights provides not only gives us the freedom to choose the Government but also guarantees that the freedom will be protected by the law of the country. In such a case if EVM’s are not tamperproof, the voting procedure becomes useless which is a serious threat to the Democracy. The issue of manipulation of EVM’s again came into picture after the result of assembly election in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. PAAS leader Hardik Patel alleged that BJP has won the election by tempering with machines. He urged all opposition party to start a movement against use of EVMs in further election and to demand for voting through ballot paper only.
If we trace the history of allegations against EVM’s, first allegation was made by CPI’s Pillai who filed a writ petition in Kerala High Court question the use and functioning of EVMs. After Election Commission gave demonstration of machines to the High Court, the court rejected the petition. In 1984, Supreme Court gave order for re-polling using ballot paper on the ground of absence of any provision regarding use of EVMs in Representation of People Act, 1951 and this verdict has nothing to do with efficiency of machines. In 1988, section 61A was introduced in the Act legitimizing use of EVMs in polls.
Further allegation came from advocate Pran Nath Lekhi in 2004 who alleged that EVMs were manipulated in favour of UPA in Lok Sabha Elections however this petition was dismissed. Before the next elections in 2009 Election Commission invited critics to prove the allegations that EVMs can be manipulated. Many people accepted the challenge but none of them succeeded. Most famous controversy was in 2010 when three scientists including one Indian Hari Prasad claimed that they had developed a process to hack EVMs. Election Commission denied the allegation and Hari Prasad was arrested for theft of an EVM from collector’s office in Mumbai but later he was acquitted since there was no dishonest intention.
In the case of Subramanium Swamy v. EC in year 2013, Supreme Court ordered EC to use a transparent Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails(VVPATs) in 2019 Lok Sabha Elections. After 2014 Lok Sabha election, Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi alleged manipulation of EVMs by BJP. One congress MP Sanjay Nirupam has drawn the attention to the point that congress leaders have been defeated in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh with large difference which is not possible unless manipulated. After result of Delhi Assembly election in 2015, Arvind Kejriwal tweeted about tempering of EVMs. The noticeable point is that all parties have alleged the tempering or manipulation after loosing the election. Before 2014 on BJP leader GVL Narsimha Rao had written book on tempering of EVMs. Recently in 2017, Shiv Sena, NCP, Congress have alleged that EVMs are being manipulated by BJP. Election Commission has always defended the credibility of EVMs. After the results of Assembly Elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, former Chief Election Commissioner has commented that EVM bashing should be stopped now. In the recent election, congress has increased the seats and many BJP leaders have lost.
Another contention against use of EVM is that many countries like Netherland, Ireland, Germany, US etc have stopped using EVMs and many have declared it unconstitutional for lack of transparency. Britain and France have never used it. To this contention, EC has put a counter argument that machines used in India are different not being a part of any network whether machines used in other are PC based and running on operating system, so could be hacked but Indian machine can neither be reprogrammed nor controlled by any external device.
The introduction of VVPAT can change the scene as a voter will immediately get the printout of his vote, so checking whether vote has been correctly registered or not would be possible. EVMs have stood infallible after demonstration, examination of scientists’ of manufacturing companies (BEL and ECIL) and study of safety measures so far. Non or false-registration issue would be clear after use of VVPAT. So another test EVMs have to pass is its use with VVPATs in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
