Team Herald
NEW DELHI: The Opposition parties, wanting return to the ballot papers, have seized a RTI (Right to Information) reply of the Election Commission on how the source code of the electronic voting machines (EVMs) that can be used to manipulate them remains outside its jurisdiction with the public sector Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Electronic Corporation of India (ECIL) producing them.
Though the Election Commission tried to dodge the reply to the RTI of an election integrity activist wanting to know the “firmware source code of both the units used in an EVM,” the incredible truth came out from the reply: “This information is not available with the Commission. It is likely to be available with BEL and ECIL.”
Former Congress minister and lawyer Manish Tewari said the reply is a clear admission of the Election Commission that it has no control over the secret source code of the EVM’s software that can be tweaked to produce spurious results.
Pointing out that if the Election Commission refuses to see reason in the Opposition’s genuine demand to drop the EVMs and revert back to the ballot papers, Tewari said: “There is always the option of approaching the Supreme Court. The EC is only one stakeholder in ensuring free and fair polls. It is obliged to address the concerns of other stakeholders.”
Seventeen Opposition parties, including the Congress, Trinamul Congress, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Nationalist Congress Party and DMK are discussing a petition to be submitted to the Election Commission to assert that the integrity of the EVMs is doubtful and holding the 2019 Lok Sabha elections with these voting machines will undermine the democracy.
The petition will underline that several evolved democracies, such as the United States and Germany, continue to rely on the ballot paper as they find possibility of manipulation in case of polls using any electronic device.
Trinamul’s senior member Saugata Roy raised the demand for return to the ballot papers in the Lok Sabha during the Zero Hour, claiming that the EVMs could be manipulated by the ruling party as the machine’s neutrality stands compromised.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission is in no mood to go back to hold elections with the ballot papers as it is rather trying to link the EVMs with the voter’s Aadhaar number. In fact, it had already linked some 30 crore of the +87 crore voters with Aadhaar when the Supreme Court slapped a stay on proceeding further.
An EC official said the commission is waiting for the green signal of the Supreme Court as the linkage will resolve the ticklish issue of identification of the voters. He said the EVMs will be re-calibrated to incorporate Aadhaar as that will remove the necessity of a voter establishing his or her identity. It will also reduce the number of personnel engaged and help the commission complete the voting process with lesser time and lesser resources.
The Election Commission has already prayed in the Apex Court that those not having the Aadhaar card will be provided other alternatives to establish their identity for voting, the official added.
