Opposition parties are deliberately lying about EVMs for a specific reason. They’re trying to fool their cadres and vote banks so as to retain their support.
The Congress party’s 84th plenary resolution has demanded that the Election Commission dump electronic voting machines (EVMs) and take India back to the innocent, old era of paper ballots.
It began with the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s) Arvind Kejriwal after the Punjab assembly elections last year. By now, almost all opposition parties have raised doubts over EVMs. More worryingly, non-BJP voters on the ground often wonder aloud if EVMs are rigged.
The allegation of EVM-rigging is classic fake news: conspiracy theories floated as truth because people will believe it. People believe it because everyone’s astounded by the BJP’s victory after victory in elections.
An obvious farce
The BJP’s recent election upsets should have settled the matter. Why weren’t the EVMs rigged in Gorakhpur, Phulpur, Ajmer, Alwar, Araria and rural Gujarat? Why did the Modi government choose not to rig EVMs in the Bihar and Delhi assembly elections? If the BJP could rig EVMs, why did they choose to lose the Delhi state elections in 2015 so badly that they won only 3 of 70 seats?
It’s such an obvious farce. In Phulpur and Gorakhpur, had there been a higher voter turnout and the BJP’s voters had turned out in larger numbers, it is possible the Samajwadi Party (SP) could have lost these seats despite support from the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). In that case, opposition parties, including the SP, the BSP, the Congress and the AAP, would have questioned the integrity of the EVMs.
Hilariously, there were those on social media who said, in all seriousness, that the BJP had deliberately lost Phulpur and Gorakhpur to fool people into thinking EVMs were not being rigged.
The opposition parties are deliberately lying about EVMs for a specific reason. They’re trying to fool their cadres and vote banks so as to keep up their morale in favour of the parties.
For instance, had Arvind Kejriwal not propped up the EVM-rigging story, questions would have been asked of his leadership in the Punjab elections.
That is all there is to it. It is not the EVMs, but the opposition parties that are destroying the credibility of the election process.
There are multiple administrative and technical safeguards that make mass EVM-rigging impossible. If anything, EVMs are becoming more reliable with the introduction of the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails, or VVPAT. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, all EVMs are likely to be VVPAT-enabled.
All those doubting EVMs must answer two simple questions. One is about re-polling and the other about Form 20.
Re-polling
If the opposition parties feel the BJP has unfairly won a particular election, why don’t they demand a re-poll?
When an election is rigged, it is the popular will that is being subverted. The rigging of an election is such a serious matter, it led to militancy in Kashmir. If not the people, you’d expect at least the affected political parties to be out on the streets protesting the rigging, demanding a re-poll?
The once-agitationist AAP would like us to believe they lost the Punjab assembly elections thanks to rigged EVMs. The party that promised a revolution in Punjab has accepted a rigged election process so easily? Why hasn’t Arvind Kejriwal been marching the streets of Jalandhar?
Why haven’t the opposition parties been berating the Election Commission or knocking the doors of the Supreme Court demanding re-polling?
All they are doing is saying “EVMs can be hacked”. Of course, any machine could be manipulated. The difference is one of theory and practice. EVMs could be manipulated, but are they being manipulated in elections where the BJP has been winning?
In the recent Tripura assembly elections, there were issues in six polling stations. The CPI (M) demanded a re-poll, and the EC held a re-poll in those six booths. As simple as that. Why is the opposition not doing this elsewhere?
The answer is simply that the opposition parties are lying.
Form 20
Very few people outside of political parties and those engaged with elections are aware of Form 20. After an election is over, the Election Commission releases very detailed data about how every polling booth voted.
There are about 1,400 voters per polling booth, on average. A few days after the poll result is declared, the Election Commission releases data sheets showing how every booth voted. So it is possible to know the number of people for each candidate at each polling booth.
These sheets are known as Form 20. They’re often available online!
This is a privacy issue. Candidates and parties can potentially victimise and discriminate against those 1,400 voters (just 200-300 households — half a village) after seeing in Form 20 sheets that this polling booth didn’t vote for them.
That is why the Election Commission wants to club 14 polling booths together, mix their results through ‘totaliser’ software, and nobody would know how each polling booth voted. The government doesn’t like the idea, and neither do most political parties, because Form 20 data is crunched by parties and candidates to target different polling booths. It also determines their decisions to not waste time on a polling booth that, according to Form 20 data, doesn’t vote for a party historically. Benefits that flow from development and governance could also be affected.
But, for now, we have Form 20. When the Form 20 sheets come in, booth workers of parties and candidates look at them. If a party’s booth worker feels, “How is this possible? Only 100 votes for my party? I know at least 200 who voted for us,” he can flag it with his party.
This way, parties can ask their cadres and booth workers to check the entire constituency. If you can get more than 100 voters to sign on an affidavit that they voted for your party, you can go to the Election Commission and the courts, demanding a re-poll.
We see opposition parties do no such thing to back their claim that EVMs are rigged. They are deliberately and mischievously lying to deflect from their electoral failures.
Hi Mr Shivam Vij.
Appreciate Ur write up on can evms be tampered,and options before political parties or candidate, can u let me know about the option of voters filing an affidavit for approaching the commission or courts, is there any law or rules formulated which u can quote, if so kindly share
Thanks
Let us assume for a moment that EVM are not tampered, but in theory they can be tampered as demonstrated by AAP in Delhi Assembly. Do consider that their are numerous accounts of Independents not getting their won vote and loosing the elections by ‘zero’ votes. What about the order of Uttaranchal high court to sieze 4000 EVM’s when few tampered EVM’s were found. What about its investigation? Also if you remember Delhi MCD elections were fought with EVM’s brought from Gujarat instead of using the 15000 EVM’s available in the state of Delhi because the Gujarat EVM were of a previous less secure EVM Generation. Do remember the EVM Paper trail leak video also proved it conclusively that No matter where you press the Button Paper Slip was of BJP. Adding insult to this the Election Commission is not ready to verify the EVM paper trail after Gujarat Elections, Congress has demanded it on 21 seats, but the EC is not responding. BJP chooses to rig the elections most important to it. BJP was more successful in rigging a lot of State elections and it will do it again.
Congress is bitter, so they are making up stories.
Every one who supports EVM must answer two questions :
1. Have you seen the software code for EVM ?
2. Why almost all malfunctioning EVMs vote for BJP ?
If software code is not public and open source, it can have algorithms to favor a certain party is a non obvious way.
Probability of EVM having only one party voting malfunction is so low that is almost impossible; mathematically!
I do not believe that EVM can be hacked by blue-tooth and such non-sense but maintaining faith in electoral process is also very important. If we can wait for a month for elections to be over, we can wait a few more hours for result.
Cases that when the button in favour of another party was pressed, the vote went to BJP. This happened in UP election. Malfunctioning of RAMs in favour of BMP was reported in MP too. Similar thing happened in Gujarat. The button in favour of Congress could not be pressed at all. After such malpractice was reported, the EC simply said that the EVE was then replaced. In Tripura, the then ruling party complained about the problems in voting process. But the EC ordered for repoll in other booths where there were no problems. It is possible that the benefiting party leave out small fishes, but it will cause malfunctioning to catch big fishes. Why do the buttons register votes always in favour of BJP?
Shiv Vij does not know everything. Please go to booths from your studio rooms on day of polling. The bottom line is EVMs have not been proved to be tamper-proof. Please dont lecture what you dont know.
Exactly EVMs have NOT been proved to be tamper-proof. That pretty much settles it in favour of paper ballots.
Very good piece on EVM. It is not very hard to understand why congress is asking for that, they so poor in leadership and future thought that today in this AI era they want to devide Hindu and win election in Karnataka much like Envaders Mughal and British.
In fact congress does not have sense today to understand what is happening with them it is because they focused al 70 years on one family and still doing that. Therefore they lost the natural ability to talk to the surrounding and changing environment and grow through learning and experience.
They still have reference point from history like muslim iftar, jalidar topi, reservation, backward forward Hindu devide. That what they learnt in past and now refusing to learn new things for future. It is suicidal for congress. They got burried by their past loads
Sir, please stop spinning the issue around. The EC and BJP have all along claimed that EVMs cannot be tampered with. But now you spin the question around: “EVMs could be manipulated, but are they being manipulated in elections where the BJP has been winning?” The bottom line is EVMs have not been proved to be tamper-proof. Rest is nonsense, whether BJP rigged Delhi poll or other polls etc, is immaterial to the central issue. As a voter I want to know only whether my vote could be manipulated through the machine and the EC, BJP have not been able to say no, it cannot be.
One hardly gets a couple of minutes near the EVM. Don’t know if EVM can be tampered within this short time. Kejriwal tried to show that EVM can be manipulated… everyone has seen how far was he successful?
Can it not be tampered even before you are there, days, months even weeks before? Just answer this question, forget Kejriwal and whether he was successful or not.
that is why there was a hackathon and u didnt participate in it. cold feet?
Was there a hackathon? No to the best of my knowledge. First off only political parties could participate in the ‘hackathon’, which had some very self serving terms to ensure a heads I win, tails you lose situation. I wrote to several parties, and offered to nail the EC’s claim but they did not reply. I wrote to media to give me only 10 minutes and public platform, I do not even need an EVM, but nobody is willing.