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Email: prabuddhabharatha1@gmail.comNEWS
Electoral Reforms
Despite the fact that
‘It took EC 4 years to admit that EVMs could be hacked’
,
if any one suggests them to revert back to Paper Ballots the EC
questions “What is the Proof you have to say that the EVMs are fraud?”
in a typical brahminical way.
Here is
Proof No1
http://www.rediff.com/news/report/ls-election-it-took-ec-4-years-to-admit-that-evms-could-be-hacked/20140314.htm
March 14, 2014 15:16 IST
In
October 2013, the Supreme Court, in a landmark verdict, directed the
Election Commission to equip its Electronic Voting Machines with Vote
Verifiable Paper Audit Trial systems, which allows voters to verify that
their votes are cast as intended and serves as an additional barrier to
changing or destroying votes.
Subsequently, the EC introduced VVPAT
in 10 assembly constituencies in Mizoram and one constituency each in
Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan during the elections
in these states.
Now, as the nation gears up for Lok Sabha election,
the ECI has created a flutter by announcing that it may not be ready to
roll out VVPAT before 2019.
The poll body says that it will need about
14 lakh VVPAT machines to introduce the system in all 543 Lok Sabha
constituencies. However, it believes that so many machines cannot be
produced and tested in such a short duration of time.
Under VVPAT, a
printer-like apparatus is linked to EVM.
When a vote is cast, a
receipt is generated showing the serial number, name and symbol of the
candidate.
It confirms the vote and the voter can verify the details.
The receipt, once viewed, goes inside a container linked to the EVM
and can only be accessed by the election officers in rarest of rare
cases.
The system allows a voter to challenge his or her vote on
basis of the paper receipt for the first time.
As per a new rule, the
booth presiding officer will have to record the dissent of the voter,
which would have to be taken into account at time of counting.
G V L
Rao, part of Save India Democracy which exposed the frauds being
committed through EVMs, told rediff.com that the bigger issue was that
the government dragged its feet on sanctioning funds for the
introduction of VVPAT despite the Supreme Court passing its order a year
ago.
Rao said, “To begin with every EVM needs to be kept in a secure
environment so that it is cannot be tampered with. However, what we had
found is that these machines were dumped in an open yard which made it
vulnerable to tampering.”
“As a result of dumping these machines in
the open, many had gone missing and the ECI has not yet revealed these
details to us.”
Rao added, “The most important part of this machine is
the chip, which contains the source code. We suggested was that since
these machines were kept in the open, it would be advisable to at least
change the chip. These chips cost not more than Rs 100 each.”
“The
other suggestion that we made and was not taken was regarding the
maintenance of the machines. These machines are manufactured by Bharat
Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India. These
companies send engineers to carry out a maintenance check or a first
level check. Shockingly, these are not employees of the above mentioned
two companies. They are agents hired on a contract basis and they
conduct the inspection of these machines before the elections.”
“We
suggested that that the job of the first level check be given to the
National Informatics Centre so that the person doing the job has
accountability. We had pointed out that some of these persons who were
hired to conduct this check belonged to software companies that were
being run by politicians.”
“The chances of tampering are higher in
such cases. However, the ECI did not agree with us. The problem is that
there is a leap of blind faith in technology and the ECI blindly trusts
everything that the manufacturer does. We have always pointed out that
elections cannot be based on trust.”
“It is necessary to ensure
safeguards and more importantly the ECI should have implemented VVPAT by
now. It took them almost four years to acknowledge that EVMs could be
hacked.”
“When a person votes there ought to be a valid receipt of the
same, just the way one would get a statement when cash is drawn out of
an ATM. Without a valid record one cannot go back and check in case
there is a problem.”
Re: Save Indian democracy
by Vishvaksenah E (View MyPage) on Mar 15, 2014 04:23 PM
EVMs
can be easily hacked, those r not completely indigenous, the chips and
ECs inside EVMs r imported from unknown country. (may be from _Italy).
EVMs can be pre-programmed b4 elections and can be manipulated after
polling is over.
Re: Re: Save Indian democracy
by Vishvaksenah E
(View MyPage) on Mar 15, 2014 04:23 PM
They take care of these
things:
1) they never hack state assembly elections. who cares state
assemblies, supreme court, vigilance, CBI, ED everything is at central
hand. those r enough to secure their looting spree.
Re: Re: Re: Save
Indian democracy
by Vishvaksenah E (View MyPage) on Mar 15, 2014 04:24
PM
2) they dont hack the constituencies of eminent opposition leaders
who can win undoubtedly.
3) they dont do rampant hacking, c0ngress
only needs seats between 160 to 210 on its own to rule the nation. the
remaining seats wud come from its slave tentacles (parties).
Re: Re: Re: Re: Save Indian democracy
by Vishvaksenah E (View MyPage) on Mar 15, 2014 04:25 PM
In
2009 , Hariprasad- a techie from AP stole the EVMs from a polling booth
and demonstrated the hacking procedure of EVMs before media. But no
channel aired that news, Some papers published in inside pages. After
that the c0ngress started humiliating him by imposing numerous
non-bailable cases for stealing EVMs and even fake sexual harassment
case too.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Save Indian democracy
by Vishvaksenah E
(View MyPage) on Mar 15, 2014 04:26 PM
Thanks to EVMs, UPA 1 and 2
happened.
The real force who manipulates the_CONgress_ party are happy.
They care a hoot for the assembly results
Immediate solution
by v dev (View MyPage) on Mar 15, 2014 09:05 AM
is
to go back to paper ballot where VVPAT is not available. Cost is no
consideration when the nation’s is future is at stake. Hope a
respectable person approaches SC NOW to compel EC to use VVPAT machine
or paper ballots…
Then why EVM to be used
by sujit choudhury (View MyPage) on Mar 15, 2014 09:03 AM
If
evms can be hacked why it is used,no other country is using evms our ex
cm pk mahanta had proved that evms can be hacked yet EC has not taken
any action,this india,a loughing country
Hacking EVMs is
easy…
by Dhananjay Kumar (View MyPage) on Mar 15, 2014 06:58 AM |
Hide replies
It is just a toy with an interface which shows all the
party symbols, and produces a sound when you press a button (cast a
vote). The microcontroller, in an ideal case, runs a program which
identifies the input from user and take action accordingly. In a hacked
EVM, the interface, producing sound and all works fine, except for the
action part which is essentially hidden from public.
The best case to
prove the hacking is how P Chidambram won by 1000 votes after losing by
big margin. There simply cannot be a counting mistake by an electronic
voting machine. In an ideal scenario, it will produce the same count
whether you do it 100 or 1000 times. But the second time, the
manipulated EMVs were used to count, to win him the MP seat.
http://news.yahoo.com/scant-aid-low-caste-villagers-hit-south-india-134924533.html
Scant aid for low-caste villagers hit by south India floods: charities
By Nita Bhalla and Sandhya Ravishankar
CHENNAI/NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Hundreds of poor
lower-caste families who lost their homes and jobs after devastating
floods swept southern India have been neglected by government relief
efforts, a survey conducted by two charities has found.
About 280 people have died and more than 400,000 have been
displaced across Tamil Nadu state since torrential rains began in early
November, swelling rivers and reservoirs and inundating the state
capital Chennai and neighboring coastal districts.
A study of the first days of the floods found that
although low-caste or “SC/STs” families were the group worst hit by the
floods, few had received any help, said National Dalit Watch and Social
Awareness Society for Youth – Tamil Nadu.
“No relief
has reached the community properly till now. During the distribution of
food relief there has been priority to the families having concrete
houses, people having connections with leaders of villages,” the report
said.
“Relief camps and medical facilities have been
organized far away from the villages, or are in dominant caste areas
which SC/ST people cannot access due to the lack of transport and fear
of discrimination and violence,” it added.
Government officials in Cuddalore district said the report was incorrect
and helping marginalized SC/ST communities was considered a priority
after a disaster.
“In times of inundation, SC/ST colonies are usually more affected
since they are in low-lying areas,” Gagandeep Singh Bedi, Cuddalore’s
Monitoring Officer for Disaster Relief, told the Thomson Reuters
Foundation.
“The state government is very sensitive
to the needs of SC/STs. For them, we have built a temporary shelter in
record time.”
The rains, the heaviest in a century,
hit Chennai last week, putting some areas under eight feet (2.5 meters)
of water, trapping people on rooftops with no power or communications.
The rains have now stopped, water levels are dropping, and
the government has set up relief camps across Tamil Nadu. Dry food and
tarpaulins are being distributed, but some interior areas have been
difficult to reach due to damaged roads.
The survey
polled 1,500 families in Cuddalore district, more than 40 percent of
them Dalits, from Nov. 19 to 21. It found that 95 percent of damaged
houses, 92 percent of livestock lost and 86 percent of crops lost
belonged to SC/STs.
Caste-based discrimination was
banned in India in 1955, but centuries-old attitudes persist in many
parts of the country and low-caste Indians still face prejudice in every
sector.
Aid workers say that in times of flood or
drought, many SC/STs do not get the same access as higher-caste Indians
to emergency aid such as clean water, dry food rations or shelter.
In most SC/ST villages surveyed in Cuddalore’s
Parangipettai and Bhuvanagiri blocks there was no clean drinking water,
and in some areas dominant castes had refused to share their water
sources with SC/STs, the survey showed. Most SC/ST villages also lack
medical services, it added.
But government officials said the bulk of the relief budget
had been spent on helping rebuild and repair over 70,000 damaged homes
of SC/STs.
“District and state government are aware and make conscious efforts to
ensure that the poor and SC/STs are given the greatest care,” said
Bedi.
(Reporting by Nita Bhalla in New Delhi and Sandhya Ravishankar in
Chennai, writing by Nita Bhalla, editing by Tim Pearce. Please credit
the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters,
that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption
and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)
the political parties are representatives of their own caste people and
are just for publicity. They are conscious about their white dress and
pose for the media while providing relief and go on blaming their
opponent caste party. AIADMK does everything in the name of amma as if
she is the owner of TN as present CM .DMK does it in the name of
Kalingar projecting his son Stallin as next CM, Ramadoass as his son as
next CM, Vijaykant as if he will be the next CM same case with Vaiko
Just for publicity. But all of them neglect the deserving SC/ST who are
badly affected by the disaster. All these leaders have been fooling the
people with the help of the Tinsel world. The poor have remained poor
and these leaders have become richer and richer. Only the Bahujan Samaj
Party have gone to help these helpless people. Unless they come to power
the wealth of the country will not be distributed proportionally among
all societies as enshrined in the Constitution.They are for Sarvajan
Hitaye Sarvajan Sukhe i.e., for peace, happiness and welfare of all
societies. Till such time these
caste leaders will have their hay days and continue to ruin the nation.
NEWS
Electoral Reforms Proof No 2
http://supremecourtofindia.nic.in/outtoday/9093.pdf
CJI SADHASIVAM, shirked its duty & committed a grave error of
judgment by allowing in phased manner Fraud Tamperable EVMs on the
request of CEC SAMPATH because of Rs.1600 crore cost to replace them
and dealt a fatal blow to the Country’s democracy. Ex CJI did not order
for ballot paper system to be brought in. No such precautionary measure
was decreed by the apex court. Ex CJI did not order that till the time
this newer set of about 13,00,000 voting machines is manufactured in
full & deployed totally. All the people in 80 democracies in the
world who simply done away with fradulent EVMs should not recognise
Modi & his Government. These Insecure EVMs must be scraped by the CJI to order for Fresh
elections to Lok Sabha and all the State Assembly elections conducted with paper ballots to save
Democracy, Liberty, Fraternity and Equality a Enshrined in the
Constitution.
This act of CJI and CEC helped the Murderer of
democratic institutions (Modi) remotely controlled by 1% chitpawan
brahmin Rowdy Swayam Sevaks gobble the MASTER KEY which goes against the
interest of 99% Sarvajans including SC/STs/OBCs/Minorities/poor upper castes’
liberty, fraternity and equality as enshrined in our Constitution
fathered by Babasaheb Dr BR Ambedkar.
act is itself is proof that the EVMs are vulnerable to fraud for which
they must be punished because of their practice of hatred which is
madness requiring treatment of Insight meditation in mental asylum.
present CJI must dismiss the central and all the State Governments
selected by these fraud EVMs and order for fresh elections with paper
ballots which are followed by 80 democracies around the world.
Ms Mayawati who could not win even a single seat in the last Lok sabha
Elections because of the tampering of these fraud EVMs won more than 80 %
votes in the last UP Panchayat elections conducted through paper
ballots. That is another proof of vulnerability of these fraud EVMs.
All the future elections have to be conducted through paper ballots.
Then Ms Mayawati will not only become the CM of UP but also the next PM
of Prabuddha Bharath.
Proof No 3
with reference to
http://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/India/20100828/1575461.html
RSS favours paper ballots, EVMs subjected to public scrutiny
Joining the controversy regarding the reliablity of Electronic Voting
Machines (EVMs) which have been questioned by political parties, the
RSS today asked the Election Commission (EC) to revert back to tried
and tested paper ballots and subject EVMs to public scrutiny whether
these gadgets are tamper proof. In an editorial titled ‘Can we
trust our EVMs?’, The Organiser, the RSS mouthpiece, noted it was a
fact that till date an absolutely tamper-proof machine had not been
invented and credibility of any system depends on ‘transparency,
verifiability and trustworthiness’ than on blind and atavistic faith
in its infallibility. The issue is not a ‘private affair’ and it
involves the future of India. Even if the EVMs were genuine, there was
no reason for the EC to be touchy about it, the paper commented. The
Government and the EC can’t impose EVMs as a fait accompli on Indian
democracy as the only option before the voter. There were flaws like
booth capturing, rigging, bogus voting, tampering and ballot paper
snatching in the ballot paper system of polling leading the country to
switch over to the EVMs and all these problems were relevant in EVMs
too. Rigging was possible even at the counting stage. What made the
ballot papers voter-friendly was that all aberrations were taking
place before the public eye and hence open for corrections whereas the
manipulations in the EVMs is entirely in the hands of powers that
be and the political appointees manning the sytem, the paper
commented. The EVM has only one advantage — ’speed’ but that
advantage has been undermined by the staggered polls at times spread
over three to four months. ‘’This has already killed the fun of the
election process,'’ the paper noted. Of the dozen General Elections
held in the country, only two were through the EVMs and instead of
rationally addressing the doubts aired by reputed institutions and
experts the Government has resorted to silence its critics by
‘intimidation and arrests on false charges’, the paper observed,
recalling the arrest of Hyederabad-based technocrat Hari Prasad by the
Mumbai Police. Prasad’s research has proved that the EVMs were
‘vulnerable to fraud’. The authorities want to send a message that
anybody who challenges the EC runs the risk of persecution and
harassment, the RSS observed. Most countries around the world
looked at the EVMs with suspicion and countries like the Netherlands,
Italy, Germany and Ireland had all reverted back to paper ballots
shunning EVMs because they were ‘easy to falsify, risked eavesdropping
and lacked transparency’. Democracy is too precious to be handed
over to whims or an opaque establishment and network of unsafe gizmos.
‘’For the health of Indian democracy it is better to return to tried
and tested methods or else elections in future can turn out to be a
farce,'’ the editorial said.
– (UNI) — 28DI28.xml That was when the Bahuth Jiyadha Paapis (BJP) remotely controlled by RSS which wanted the paper ballots to be reverted was in OPPOSITION. The very same RSS is remaining silent b ecause they are in POSITION.
Mayawati who could not win even a single seat in the last Lok sabha
Elections because of the tampering of these fraud EVMs and won more than 80 %
votes in the last UP Panchayat elections conducted through paper
ballots which is another proof of vulnerability of these fraud EVMs
while the Murderer of democratic institutions (Modi) remotely controlled
by RSS paid just 29 secs Sarthanjali to Vishwa
Rathna Dr BR Ambedkar founding Father
of Modern Constitution of Prabuddha Bharath. It is high time that the
RSS shred its hatred towards Scheduled Castes and work for Ms Mayawati to
acquire the MASTER KEY for becoming the next PM of Prabuddha Bharath as
Hindutva minus untouchability is Buddhism. They must go around the
country to propagate this truth by having Saha Bandhi Bojhan etc.,
that will remove the sitgma on brahmins in general and the chitpawan
brahmins in particular. They must elect an untouchable as their Chief
and representatives
of all castes and religions to form a collegium system as all of them
belong to a single same race which is genetically proved and for
Prabuddha Bharath i.e., an AWAKENED ONE with AWARENESS Bharath and show a
good path to the entire Universe to form Prabuddha Prapanch i.e., an
Awakened Universe with Awareness, instead of practicing snake charmers gimmicks of telling the public that he will make the snake and the mangoose to fight, but without doing that he packs up after collecting money as they go on telling that they will construct Rama Temple after they demolished Babri Masjid when ever any election comes. But when in power, like the snake charmer they will never do that. All epics were authored by SC/STs like Valmiki, Vysa etc. who never practiced hatred towards their brethren. But the RSS which is a non-entity have gobbled these ethics like the fraud EVMs only to read Ramayana but to demolish Perumal Koil and Babri Masjid which is nothing but madness requiring treatment in mental asylum.
Proof No 4
BSP
is not only a political party but also a movement of societal change.
Hence this technological game of 1% Chitpawan RSS plan has to be
defeated by strengthening the 99% intellectuals by exposing the
fradulent EVMs as done by 80 democracies of the world in the larger
interest of Sarvajan Hitaye Sarvajan Sukhaye i.e., for the peace,
happiness and welfare of all societies including SC/STs/ OBCs/
Minorities and the poor brahmins and baniyas for distributing the wealth
of this country among all sections of the society as enshrined in the
Constitution by making the Supreme Court to pass orders to replace all
fradulent EVMs and till such time to scrap all elections conducted by
these fradulent EVMs and then to conduct elections with tamper proof
voting system like paper ballots to save democracy, equality, fraternity and liberty.
It
is about time this country reformed its voting system to ensure that
the electoral verdicts reflect the true will of the people of the
country.
1. The Whole World has Discarded Similar EVMs
2. Use of EVMs is Unconstitutional and Illegal Too!
3. EVM Software Isn’t Safe
4. Nor is The Hardware
5. EVMs are Sitting Ducks
6. “Insider” Fraud a Concern
7. Storage and Counting are Concerns
8. Vote of No Confidence
9. EC is Clueless on Technology
0. Trust Deficit1.
The Whole World has Discarded Similar EVMs.
The
electronic voting machines used in this country’s elections are
internationally known as Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting
machines which record votes directly in electronic memory.
Similar
voting machines have been banned in many countries such as Germany, the
Netherlands, Irelands etc. and such machines are allowed in most states
of the US only with a paper back up. Potential dangers of “vote fraud”
and more importantly, lack of transparency and verifiability associated
with them prompted ban or restrictions of their use. Developed nations
like the United Kingdom and France and advanced countries in our region
like Japan and Singapore have so far stuck to voting on paper ballots,
owing to their simplicity, verifiability and voter confidence in the
system. This country is an exception to this international trend and we
continue to use these voting machines long discarded by the world due
to lack of awareness and appreciation of the lay public of the concerns.
2. Use of EVMs is
Unconstitutional and Illegal Too! This country’s EVMs may also be held
unconstitutional because they infringe upon the fundamental rights of
the voters. In this country, Right to vote is a legal right but how that
vote should be exercised by a voter is his/ her individual expression
covered by Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution, which guarantees
fundamental rights to the citizens. In the 2002 case pertaining to
disclosure of assets and the criminal background of candidates, the
Supreme Court ruled that voters have a right to know the antecedents of
the contesting candidates and this is fundamental and basic for
survival of democracy. Accordingly, a voter has the right to know that
his vote which he exercised as a part of freedom of expression has
really gone in favour of the candidate whom he/she has chosen. This
right, fundamental in nature, is absent in the electronic voting system.
In the traditional paper ballot system, that fundamental
right was preserve because a voter knew exactly how his/ her vote was
recorded and Universal use of EVMs in Indian elections is illegal too!
In 1984, the Supreme Court of India held that the use of electronic
voting machines in elections was “illegal” as the Representation of
People (RP) Act, 1951 did not permit use of voting machines in
elections. Later, the R.P. Act was amended in 1989 incorporating Section
61A. However, the amendment says voting machines “may be adopted in
such constituency or constituencies as the Election Commission may,
having regard to the circumstances of each case, specify.” Violating the
provisions of the R.P Act, the Election Commission has conducted 2004
and 2009 nationwide general elections only using electronic voting
machines. Going by the 1984 judgment of the Supreme Court, parliamentary
elections of 2004 and 2009 may be held illegal.
3. EVM Software Isn’t Safe.
The electronic voting machines are safe and secure only if the source code used in the EVMs is genuine.
Shockingly,
the EVM manufacturers, the BEL and ECIL, have shared the ‘top secret’
EVM software program with two foreign companies, Microchip (USA) and
Renesas (Japan) to copy it onto microcontrollers used in EVMs. This
process could have been done securely in-house by the Indian Worse, when
the foreign companies deliver microcontrollers fused with software code
to the EVM manufacturers, the EVM manufacturers cannot “read back”
their contents as they are either OTP-ROM or masked chips.
Amusingly,
the software given to foreign companies is not even made available with
the Election Commission, ostensibly for security reasons. With such
ridiculous decisions, the Election Commission and the public sector
manufacturers have rendered security of the EVMs a mockery. Adopting an
open standards policy by making the software public and allowing
parties to test the software installed in the EVMs would have offered
better.
4. Nor is The Hardware. The danger for EVM manipulations is not just from its software.
Even
the hardware isn’t safe. Dr. Alex Halderman, professor of computer
science in the University of Michigan says, “EVMs used in the West
require software attacks as they are sophisticated voting machines and
their hardware cannot be replaced cheaply. In contrast, the Indian EVMs
can easily be replaced either in part or as wholesale units.” One
crucial part that can be faked is microcontrollers used in the EVMs in
which the software is copied. EVM manufacturers have greatly facilitated
fraud by using generic microcontrollers rather than more secure ASIC or
FPGA microcontrollers. Not just only microcontrollers, mother boards
(cards which contain microcontrollers) and entire EVMs can be replaced.
Neither the Election Commission nor the manufacturers have undertaken
any hardware or software audit till date. As a result, such manipulation
attempts would go undetected. To detect such fraud, the upgraded EVMs
have a provision to interface with an Authentication Unit that would
allow the manufacturers to verify whether the EVM being used in the
election is the same that they have supplied to the Election Commission.
The EVM manufacturers developed an “Authentication Unit” engaging the
services of SecureSpin, a Bangalore based software services firm.
The
Unit was developed and tested in 2006 but when the project was ready
for implementation, the project was mysteriously shelved at the instance
of the Election Commission. Several questions posed to the Election
Commission for taking this decision went unanswered. 5. EVMs are Sitting
Ducks. This country’s EVMs can be hacked both before and after
elections to alter election results. Apart from manipulating the EVM
software and replacing many hardware parts discussed above, discussions
with knowledgeable sources revealed that our country’s EVMs can be
hacked in many ways. I mention just two of them below. Each EVM contains
two EEPROMs inside the Control Unit in which the voting data is
stored.
They are completely unsecured and the data inside
EEPROMs can be manipulated from an external source. It is very easy to
read (data from) the EEPROMs and manipulate them. The second and the
most deadly way to hack our country’s EVMs is by inserting a chip with
Trojan inside the display section of the Control unit. This requires
access to the EVM for just two minutes and these replacement units can
be made for a few hundred rupees. Bypassing completely all inbuilt
securities, this chip would manipulate the results and give out “fixed”
results on the EVM screen. The Election Commission is completely
oblivious to such possibilities. A demonstration of these
vulnerabilities is on the cards.
6. “Insider” Fraud a Concern.
Personal accounts from some well placed political sources and experts
say that there are some “insiders” demanding vast sums (Rs. 5 Crore for
each assembly constituency) to fix election results. Who are these
insiders? Unlike in the traditional ballot system where only the
election officials were the “insiders”, electronic voting machine regime
has spawned a long chain of insiders, all of whom are outside the ambit
and control of the Election Commission of this country. There is every
possibility that some of these “insiders” are involved in murky
activities in fixing elections. The whole world—except us in this
country–is alive to the dangers of insider fraud in elections. The
“insiders” include the public sector manufacturers of this country’s
electronic voting machines namely, the Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL)
and Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL), the foreign companies
supplying micro controllers, private players (some of which are
allegedly owned by some political leaders) for carrying out checking and
maintenance of electronic voting machines during.
7. Storage
and Counting are Concerns. The EVMs are stored at the district
headquarters or in a decentralized manner in different locations.
Election Commission’s concern for EVM safety becomes apparent only
during elections, where as security experts say that voting machines
must remain in a secure environment throughout their life cycle. There
could be many malpractices associated with electronic counting.
“Everybody watches polling closely. Nobody watches counting as
closely),” says Bev Harris, an American activist. Our Election
Commission takes three months to conduct parliamentary elections but
wants counting to be over in just three hours! In the rush to declare
results and the winners, several serious lapses go unnoticed in the
counting process. As a result, parties cannot give it the kind of
attention that this activity deserves.
Massive discrepancies
between votes polled and counted in a large number of polling stations
across the country raise serious concerns in this regard.
8.
Vote of No Confidence.The political class cutting across all sides of
the divide has just one verdict: “we don’t trust the EVMs”. This vote of
“no confidence” stems from the personal experiences of parties and
leaders as well as the nature of results thrown up by the EVMs. Parties
are looking at EVMs with great suspicion and dread the prospect of EVMs
“defeating” them.This mistrust in EVMs is not confined to any single
party and is all pervasive. Almost all mainstream political parties,
including the BJP, Congress, left parties, regional parties like the
Telugu Desam party (TDP), AIADMK, Samajwadi party, Rastriya Lok Dal
(RLD), Janata Dal (United) etc. have all expressed reservation about
EVMs in the aftermath of 2009 Lok Sabha polls. Even the Congress party
that decisively won the 2009 general elections alleged that the EVMs
have been manipulated in Orissa. Today, it is difficult to find parties
that vouch for the continued use of EVMs in Indian elections. On the
contrary, there is a flood of opposition to the EVMs from the political
class.
9. EC is Clueless on Technology.The Election Commission
has adopted the EVM technology about which it has practically no
knowledge.
As a result, it has little control over many
aspects of the election process. None of the election commissioners,
neither the present commissioners nor their predecessors, have proper
understanding of the EVM technology. The only source of technical
understanding for the Election Commission is a Committee of experts led
by its chairman, Prof. P.V.Indiresan. Even the Expert Committee seems
very weak in its capacities and understanding. Alex Halderman, professor
of computer science at the University of Michigan and an expert on the
security of voting systems who was present in New Delhi for the launch
of the book, Democracy at Risk, Can We Trust our EVMS? commented, “When I
read the 2006 technical report prepared by the Expert Committee of the
Election Commission. I scribbled on it that there was a cause for alarm
and quickly decided to agree to come here.” That speaks volumes for the
quality and rigor of security testing done on the Country’s EVMs.
10.
Trust Deficit. Election Commission’s conduct in the wake of the serious
reservations expressed by people has been unbecoming of a
constitutional body. It has uttered many lies – our EVMs are “tamper
proof”, they are “different” etc. etc. It has refused to provide any
clarifications sought to the petitioners in the Supreme Court, despite a
reference from the Supreme Court of India. It has taken several
questionable decisions for which it has refused to offer any
explanations. For instance, it does not explain why old EVMs were used
in Lok Sabha elections despite the recommendations of its own Expert
Committee.
It does not explain why as many as 4.48 Lakh new
EVMs (which are more secure as per the Expert Committee) were not used
in any Congress party or UPA ruled states? Why and where it had allowed
use of state government owned EVMs? The non-transparent conduct of
Election Commission in the use of EVMs and the farce of an “enquiry” it
has conducted following serious reservations on EVMs does not inspire
confidence in its unbiased functioning.
How EVM Works and how can changed it’s functionality Watch this video [youtube id=”ZlCOj1dElDY” width=”620″ height=”360″] -
See
more at:
http://kohram.in/ten-reasons-for-banning-indian-evms/#sthash.5sue6t7S.dpuf
youtube id=”ZlCOj1dElDY” width=”620″ height=”360″ -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlCOj1dElDY
This
country’s EVMs are Vulnerable to Fraud-Contrary to claims by our
country,s election authorities, the paperless electronic voting systems
used in India suffer from significant vulnerabilities. Even brief access
to the machines could allow criminals to alter election results.
In
this video, we demonstrate two kinds of attacks against a real Indian
EVM. One attack involves replacing a small part of the machine with a
look-alike component that can be silently instructed to steal a
percentage of the votes in favor of a chosen candidate. These
instructions can be sent wirelessly from a mobile phone. Another attack
uses a pocket-sized device to change the votes stored in the EVM between
the election and the public counting session, which in India can be
weeks later.
These attacks are neither complicated nor
difficult to perform, but they would be hard to detect or defend
against. The best way to prevent them is to count votes using paper
ballots that voters can see.
indiaEVM.org
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br2Mjt1BecI - EVMs Can Be
Tampered - Says Net India - Net India company says that the Electronic
Voting Machines EVMs which are used in polling stations can be tampered
in favor of the candidates. Watch this to find out more…..To watch
live news, videos subscribe to CVR News @
https://www.youtube.com/user/CVRNewsO…-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1xov8mrLZc -
EVM in INDIA
REALITY EXPOSED by Dr Subramanian
Swamyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3THfIvvxPY - EVMs can be tampered,
experts say - Electronic voting machines could be easily tampered to
manipulate elections results, a group of foreign experts said at a
seminar in Dhaka on Tuesday. A standing committee member of the main
opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Abdul Moyeen Khan, in the
seminar said that the party would make some prototypes of the EVMs the
Election Commission made to show the people how the device could be
tampered.
Non-governmental organisation Centre
for Sustainable Development organised the seminar, ‘Electronic voting
machines: use and abuse,’ at the Lake Shore hotel in the city. The
organisation’s secretary general Mahfuzullah conducted the seminar and
its president Anwar Hashim, also a former ambassador, presided over the
programme. Computer science professor in the University of California
Mathew Allen Bishop, senior software architect of Yahoo in India
Shashank Shekhar and research and development director of Hewlett
Packard of the United States Shawn Islam made presentation in the
seminar highlighting how EVMs could be tampered. All the three experts
said the EVMs could be tampered in several ways in a short span of time
to manipulate the elections results in favour of a certain candidate if
the manipulators would get physical access to EVMs. Citing an example of
the flaws of the EVM used in the United States and in other parts of
the world, Bishop said the EVMs, electronic devices which need software
to function, could be easily tampered. Bishop, however, asked the
authorities concerned to look into certain issues before using EVMs.
‘When votes are counted, how do you know that the button pushed to vote
for scales on the ballot unit is in fact counted as a vote for scales?’
he said. Bishop also said, ‘How do you know that the software is
correct? There are no bugs that affect the vote counting?
How do you know that the software on the EPROM chip is the version that is supposed to be used? There was no malware?’
He
said the security of the software running the EVM must be part of the
inbuilt design of the device. Earlier, Shawn Islam,m a
Bangladeshi-American, demonstrated how a vote cast for a candidate could
be stored for the candidate the voter did not vote for through software
manipulation effected beforehand. Both of the experts said that there
be a system of paper trail of the votes cast so that the voters could
see that their votes were stored for the candidate they voted for.’But,’
Shawn Islam added, ‘the EVMs developed by Bangladesh do not have any
option to add the paper trail system.’ He claimed that the EVM developed
in Bangladesh have plenty of problems. Shashank said that there was no
electronic device in the world which could not be tampered. All of the
experts said that the device must be tested by a third party before its
use.
In reply to a question whether the EVM
can be manipulated with remote control devise without physical
intervention once EVMs are tested and certified by the experts of the
political parties just before the elections, Shawn said, ‘You must have
physical interventions to manipulate it if the EVM does not belong to
any wireless network.’
When a reporter
asked Abdul Moyeen Khan whether the BNP would accept it if EVMs were
tested by their experts, the BNP leader parried the answer saying that
the party would develop some EVM prototypes to show how they could be
tampered.
Representatives from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party,
including its acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the
chairperson’s advisers Iqbal Hasan Mahmud, Sabiuddin Ahmed, Ruhal Alam
and opposition chief whip Zainul Abdin Farroque, attended. Speaking on
the occasion, former Dhaka University vice-chancellor Moniruzzaman Mia,
BRAC University professor Piash Karim and Sushaner Janya Nagarik
secretary Badiul Alam Majumder stressed the need for building trust
among political parties before introducing any new device in the
elections process.The country’s two major political camps are now at
loggerheads over the introduction of EVMs in the next polls. The ruling
Awami League-led alliance said that it would extend all cooperation to
the E C in using EVMs in the next general elections while the opposition
Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance vowed to resist the
move.Attachments area- Preview YouTube video India’s EVMs are Vulnerable
to Fraud
-Preview YouTube video EVMs Can Be Tampered - Says Net India
Preview YouTube video EVM in INDIA REALITY EXPOSED by Dr Subramanian
Swamy.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-05-20/news/27589262_1_voting-machines-display-board-hack
American scientists ‘hack’ into Indian voting machines
LONDON:
India’s voting machines - considered to be among the world’s most
tamperproof - can be hacked, American scientists claim.
Researchers at
the University of Michigan connected a home-made device to a voting
machine and successfully changed results by sending text messages from a
mobile.
“We made an imitation display board that looks almost exactly
like the real display in the machines. But underneath some of the
components of the board, we hide a microprocessor and a Bluetooth
radio,” the BBC quoted Prof J Alex Halderman, who led the project, as
saying.
He added: “Our lookalike display board
intercepts the vote totals that the machine is trying to display and
replaces them with dishonest totals - basically whatever the bad guy
wants to show up at the end of the election.”
Moreover, they added a
small microprocessor, which they say can change the votes stored in the
machine between the election and the vote-counting session.
No one’s
right mind would yet allow the use of absolutely antiquated, completely
out-dated, easily hack-able and highly tamper-able “high school
technology” based, obsolete EVMs (electronic voting machines) in
national elections, but it was used now — in 2014
More than 80
democracies in the world have simply done away with them, dumping them
in the trash, or simply declared the usage of this simplistic voting
system susceptible to fraud, and hence declaring the same as
illegal — as the Supreme Courts of Germany and Holland indeed have done.
Even Japan, from where EVMs originated, has long abandoned its rogue
babies, and is using paper ballot system since then. All the advanced
democracies in the West, except the most dull-headed ones, have reverted
to a voter verifiable system or the ballot paper. In Canada, even at
the ,most basic school level, ballot paper voting is in use.
Last
year, the Supreme Court of India, having been convinced of an
undeniable, edible possibility of EVMs getting tampered with and that
easily hacked — even from afar — had ordered the imbecilic Election
Commission and the indolent Government of India to provide about 1600
crore (1600, 0000000) rupees — convert this into your respective
currency! — for manufacturing these VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit
Trail) voting machines; which show a verifiable paper receipt to the
voter.
This is the Fundamental Right of a citizen of India, as per
the laws laid down by the Constitution. However, recent newspaper
reports tell us that only 20, 000 such voting machines have been
provided for the entire country in this, 2014 election! India has 29
states now — with Telagana being the latest. In most of them, depending
upon their size etc., either about 400 VVPAT machines are being
deployed, or some such similar ridiculous number — more or less — has
been made available in the length and breadth of the country. It’s an
asinine, bland, cruel, demeaning joke we 1.25 billion voters have been
“blessed” with by the powers that be.
All “patriotic” hackers of our motherland made hay in May!
As
to how EVMs can be hacked into, tampered with, and results favorably
manipulated via software interference and other means — from near and
from far, far away — this can easily be found by anybody by just going
to Google etc. and filling “EVM HACKING, TAMPERING” or something to this
effect in the Search. And lo, behold! a plethora of information will
just overwhelm your overly chilled-out, lesser employed, un-billed
brains.
However, the only solace for us naive fools is that quite a
few unscrupulous politicians and every other most “honorable” political
party worthy of its “salt”, would surely be playing this comic-tragic
game of hacking into and hijacking the votes of a billion people! Thus,
one who outsmarts the other such fine folks, armed with their hacking
forks in this merry-go-around, will win.
The rest — this or that
“tsunami” or wave in favor of one or the other, poll forecasts and the
“newbie”, the over enthused, seeming game changers in the making — well,
they may well fall flat on their dumb faces, if not on their smart
asses.
That the Supreme Court of India too, while passing the order
of putting new VVAT voting machines in use in a “phased manner”, has
unwittingly shirked its duty. In fact, it committed a grave error of
judgment. Perhaps dealt a fatal blow to Indian democracy. It should have
ordered, as a caution, that till the time this newer set of about
1300ooo voting machines is manufactured in full and so deployed
throughout India, ballot paper system would be brought in. No such
precautionary measure was decreed by the apex court.
Well, crib all you
want. But don’t cry, my dear countrymen. After all, the same model of
EVMs is yet very much in use in South Africa, Bangla Desh, Bhutan,
Nepal, Nigeria, Venezuela etc. These poor folks of the said “non-techy”
countries — millions of them — too cannot figure out as to what the hell
had, yet is happening, in their dear short-circuited “developed”
democracies. Nor will you.
Don’t worry, be happy! You are not alone “out there”.
Oh,
by the way, the somewhat notorious lawyer who had brought in this
case — of the present lot of EVMs being tamper-able and hack-able — and,
who, had successfully fought it so, forcing the Supreme Court to order
the installation of a fail-safe voting mechanism (of Voter Verifiable
Paper Audit machines replacing the susceptible earlier Electronic Voting
Machines) to ensure a free and fair electoral process in India — well,
this oh-so-very honorable fellow too has fallen silent, like a demure
maiden. This most vociferous gentleman had openly declared on social
websites, especially Twitter, that in case VVPAT machines do not get
installed in time for 2014 elections, then, there would be a
“constitutional crisis” — putting it out there like an Indian
“pehalwan”, a la WWW wrestler, that he would challenge the same in the
apex court. He had most emphatically underlined he would ensure that
either the new fail-safe voting machines or the old time-tested paper
ballot system will be put in use during this general election in India.
However, recently, when asked specifically on Twitter about this
matter — as to what this lovely man is doing or is going to do about
this impending doomsday electoral scenario — there was a deafening
silence from his side. May be owing to the fact that since the Supreme
Court judgement late last year, this self-righteous rightist has joined
the ultra-rightist political bandwagon.
The latter has been
projected by pollsters to overwhelmingly sweep these elections — as a
direct result of the doings of the monstrous public relations firm hired
from the land of the let-it-be, oops! free. This US firm is the same
that was used fruitfully by President Bush and Hillary Clinton for their
respective political campaigns. It has — let there be no doubt about
it — successfully projected its client as the potential winner and the
next numero uno in Indian politics.
What the majority of the Indians
have missed in fine print is that the outgoing Chief Minister of the
state of Rajasthan, in the last year elections, had officially filed a
complaint with the election commission that the EVMs used in his state
were pre-programmed and tampered with — and that the same had come from
the state of which this presently hyped-up future Prime Minister of
India, is the current Chief Minister. Now, the lawyer who had gone to
the dogs to awaken India and the rest of the world about the mischief
and malfeasance possible with the old model of EVMs — and had in fact
written a book on this subject — is in a wink-wink deep-throat “smadhi”.
A silence that speaks truths we dumb billion idiots on this part of
slippery earth cannot fathom. Perhaps it’s a precursor of the things to
come.
Let us hope the jolly good hackers of this-that party screw-up
each other’s devilish, outright evil plans. In a dog eat dog political
crap pit we hapless billion creatures have to walk through every
election, maybe this time the ape sitting by the side — the wide-eyed
hopeful citizen of India — at least gets a tiny part of the apple pie
this messy hacking cat fight will leave behind, on the side lanes.
Perhaps these little crumbs will be enough for us to stay afloat. though
not gloat.
In a nutshell, simply put, whosoever “out-hacks” the other, will win.
Then
again, we are an ancient civilization of more than 33, 0000000 gods and
goddesses — some civilized, others not so civil. Let’s hope one of
these fancied deities has a soft corner for us dumbos. Otherwise, we are
going to get screwed. A billion times over.
Therefore, I made
doubly sure I did not vote. I sat on my ass on voting day — not that I
don’t do so everyday. This voting day, I absolutely did. Not only
figuratively and metaphorically, but literally. I may have many buts in
life, but at least today I have a little sore, yet not so sorry a butt.
We are a fool’s paradise.
Long live the banana republic of India!
Proof No 5 http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,195328/printable.html
Security Analysis of India’s Electronic Voting Machines
Abstract:
Elections in India are conducted almost exclusively using electronic
voting machines developed over the past two decades by a pair of
government-owned companies. These devices, known in India as EVMs, have
been praised for their simple design, ease of use, and reliability, but
recently they have also been criticized because of widespread reports of
election irregularities. Despite this criticism, many details of the
machines’ design have never been publicly disclosed, and they have not
been subjected to a rigorous, independent security evaluation. In this
paper, we present a security analysis of a real Indian EVM obtained from
an anonymous source. We describe the machine’s design and operation in
detail, and we evaluate its security, in light of relevant election
procedures. We conclude that in spite of the machine’s simplicity and
minimal trusted computing base, it is vulnerable to serious attacks that
can alter election results and violate the secrecy of the ballot. We
demonstrate two attacks, implemented using custom hardware, which could
be carried out by dishonest election insiders or other criminals with
only brief physical access to the machines. This case study contains
important lessons for Indian elections and for electronic voting
security more generally.
http://indiaevm.org/paper.html
Full technical paper at http://indiaevm.org/evm_tr2010.pdf
Excerpt:
Conclusions
Despite
elaborate safeguards, India’s EVMs are vulnerable to serious attacks.
Dishonest insiders or other criminals with physical access to the
machines at any time before ballots are counted can insert malicious
hardware that can steal votes for the lifetime of the machines.
Attackers with physical access between voting and counting can
arbitrarily change vote totals and can learn which candidate each voter
selected. These problems are deep-rooted. The design of India’s EVMs
relies entirely on the physical security of the machines and the
integrity of election insiders. This seems to negate many of the
security benefits of using electronic voting in the first place. The
technology’s promise was that attacks on the ballot box and dishonesty
in the counting process would be more difficult. Yet we find that such
attacks remain possible, while being more difficult to detect.
It
is highly doubtful that these problems could be remedied by simple
upgrades to the existing EVMs or election procedures. Merely making the
attacks we have demonstrated more difficult will not fix the fundamental
problem: India’s EVMs do not provide transparency, so voters and
election officials have no reason for confidence that the machines are
behaving honestly.
India should carefully reconsider how to
achieve a secure and transparent voting system that is suitable to its
national values and requirements. One option that has been adopted in
other countries is to use a voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT),
which combines an electronic record stored in a DRE with a paper vote
record that can be audited by hand [43]. Existing EVMs do not have
updatable software, but it would be possible to add a VVPAT by
interposing on the cable between the control unit and the ballot unit.
Another
option is precinct-count optical scan (PCOS) voting, where
voters fill out paper ballots that are scanned by a voting machine at
the polling station before being placed in a ballot box. Attacking
either of these systems would require tampering with both the paper
records and the electronic records, provided that routine audits are
performed to make sure these redundant sets of records agree [14]. A
third option is to return to simple paper ballots. Despite all of their
known weaknesses, simple paper ballots provide a high degree of
transparency, so fraud that does occur will be more likely to be
detected.
Using EVMs in India may have seemed like a good idea
when the machines were introduced in the 1980s, but science’s
understanding of electronic voting security—and of attacks against
it—has progressed dramatically since then, and other technologically
advanced countries have adopted and then abandoned EVM-style voting. Now
that we understand what technology can and cannot do, any new solutions
to the very real problems election officials face must address the
problems, not merely hide them from sight.
EVMs are not foolproof, says computer scientist
April 23rd, 2010
DC Correspondent, Kumar Chellappan
Picking
holes. A low-budget adversary armed with a small instrument can read
out votes cast, suppress the votes of one or several voters, and even
delete all the votes.
April 22: Electronic voting machines are
not as tamper-proof as the Election Commission of India would like us to
believe, going by the research of an Israeli comuter scientist who has
found flaws in the most advanced EVMs in the world.
“The Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID) EVMs developed in Israel are rated as
the most advanced machines in the world. But we have proved that they
are vulnerable to all kinds of tampering,” Avishai Wool, of the School
of Electrical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, told DC on Thursday.
“We
can show how a low-budget adversary armed with a small instrument can
read out all votes already cast into the ballot box, suppress the votes
of one or several voters, rewrite votes at will and even completely
disqualify all votes in a single booth,” Prof. Wool says in the paper.
“These attacks are easy to mount and very difficult to detect.”
\
While
Prof. Wool refused to comment on Indian EVMs, several experts have
noted that most electronic polling devices are susceptible to tampering.
Prof. Wools’ comments follow a letter qritten by David Dill, professor
of computer science at Stanford University, to Chief Election
Commissioner Navin Chawla on Indian EVMs lacking credibility.
Subramanian
Swamy, former Union minister for law, said Bharat Electronics Ltd and
ECIL, who developed the Indian EVM , have withdrawn their application
for a patent for the device from the World Intellectual Property
Organisation.
Proof No 6 http://www.deccanchronicle.com/chennai/evms-are-not-foolproof-says-computer-scientist-540
Don’t stand on prestige, dump EVMs, save democracy
http://www.indianevm.com/videos.php?id=12 Computer Science Prof. of Stanford Univ., Dr. David Dill’s statement on Indian EVMs
Proof No 7 http://www.indianevm.com/videos.php?id=14 (Videos, expert panel)
Election Commission concedes manipulation of EVMs
The
Election Commission of India has made an amazing confession: that the
security and integrity of the entire election system will be compromised
if the EVM software and the hardware design becomes known.
This
is what technologists, activists and political leaders have been saying
for many months now and the Commission had steadfastly refuted such
claims with a bizarre “our EVMs are fully tamper proof” claim.
The
above revelation was made by the Election Commission in a letter dated
March 30, 2010 to V.V. Rao, petitioner in the Supreme Court on the EVMs.
I quote below:
”…The Commission is concerned that commercial
interests could use the route of reverse engineering (a process by which
the original software and hardware configuration can be accessed) which
may compromise the security and sanctity of the entire election
system.”
“…It is once again made clear that any demonstration of
alleged tamperability cannot include reverse-engineering as it
compromises security and sanctity of the entire […]
Proof No 8 http://www.indianevm.com/blogs/?p=11
Don’t stand on prestige, dump EVMs: Naidu
J. Balaji, The Hindu
Published: April 13, 2010 00:53 IST | Updated: April 13, 2010 02:54 IST
He seeks national debate to clear “doubts in the minds of voters”
Telugu
Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu doubts that electronic
voting machines (EVMs) are non-tamperable, and has sought a national
debate to “clear all the doubts in the minds of voters.”
“I am
convinced that there is scope for tampering with the EVMs,” he said here
on Monday after launching a website, www.indianevm.com, hosted by
election analyst G.V.L. Narasimha Rao and information technologist
Hariprasad.
Though he would not blame the Election Commission,
with the existing EVMs people were not sure whether the votes they cast
went to the candidates of their choice, Mr. Naidu said. When Germany,
Singapore and some European countries had gone back to the paper ballot,
as the EVMs could be tampered with and hacked, why should India alone
use such machines? “The EC should not stand on false prestige and
gracefully go in for a debate as the issue involved the fundamental
rights of the citizens.”
Mr. Naidu said he would take up the
issue with other parties. There would be nothing wrong in the country
going back to the old system of ballot votes if the machines were not
safe and susceptible to tampering.
The former Chief Secretary of
Delhi and IIT alumnus, Omesh Saigal, asked why the chip used in EVMs was
allowed to be written in the United States. “A Trojan horse is sitting
inside the machine.”
During August last, the EC said it gave
opportunities to political parties and individuals who claimed that EVMs
could be manipulated to prove their case. But “they either failed or
chose not to demonstrate,” it said.
“The EC would like to
underline that it always had a firm conviction and complete satisfaction
that EVMs could not be tampered with. Its faith in the machine has
never wavered through the conduct of elections in the last many years.”
None
was able to actually demonstrate that the EVMs used by the Commission
could be tampered with. “What has been demonstrated or claimed to have
been demonstrated is on a privately assembled lookalike of ECI-EVMs and
not the actual EVM, produced by the Electronics Corporation of India
Limited,” the Commission said.
Proof No 9 http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article395509.ece
EVM debate rages on, lets get rid of it.
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article395509.ece
EVM debate rages. Jump in and cast your vote on the spot poll on this blog.
My
personal take is that advanced countries with a longer history of
democracy like the US, UK, Australia, France, Netherlands, Norway,
Sweden and many other European countries don’t use a EVM but the good
old paper and ballot. Why should we move to a EVM.
1) The EVM
does not provide a physical evidence of a vote. Whereby a re count can
be demanded. In earlier elections it has been seen that after a re count
a loosing candidate has won. A recount in EVM will just mean adding up
of all votes which will always add up to the earlier number. How do we
know this is correct.
2) This machine does not allow for any audit
just because it has no physical evidence. So tomorrow we shall all do
corporate accounting on a calculator (no need for bills, invoice, chalan
etc) and show the auditors the final figure on the screen of the
calculator. This is what EVM amounts to.
3) This goes against the basic Right to Information Act. Where is the evidence.
4) A 10 std Physics student can rig up such a device. I wonder why you need a micro processor even.
Please,
please jump in and tell the govt that we don’t need the EVM. Why are
they scared of going back to the old system when there is a section of
the population that does not believe in the authenticity of this device.
Don’t believe in the impartiality of the EC, its fully corrupted by
congress ideologues.
भारत मैं सभ कुछ बिकता हैं हम कैसे मान ले की EC नहीं बीके, EVM यंत्र बनाने वाले नहीं बीके होवे हैं |
PS:
UPA won a surprise victory in 2004 and left many stunned about NDA’s
loss. Many never expected this but it happened. Incidentally EVM were
first used in 2004.
Proof No 10 http://sowingseedsofthought.blogspot.com/2010/04/evm-debate-rages-on-lets-get-rid-of-it.html
http://www.indianevm.com/
: EVMs are prone to tampering by both external hackers and insiders.
The danger of insider fixing of elections is recognized the world over.
Hence mere faith in companies and a host of private players handling
EVMs cannot be the basis for election results. Elections can be trusted
only if the results are verifiable and auditable. Most developed
countries have rejected or reformed direct-recording EVMs. Election
Commission of India is persisting with the voting machines ignoring the
serious concerns. Hence this effort to mobilize public opinion.
In
the Philippines ballot papers are used. Counting is done through voting
machines by optically scanning the ballots into the machine. Still, a
manual audit is mandated. In computing, if things can go wrong, they
always will; this is Murphy’s law of computing. I hope you have read
Stanford Univ. Prof. Dill’s letter to
ECI. http://www.scribd.com/doc/26954805/Dr-Dill-Letter-to-ECI
The nature of the electonic counting in the Philippines
kalyan 25 Feb. 2010
EVMs and cyberlaw of the Philippines: mandated manual audit
Article posted February 24, 2010 - 09:48 PM
Commission
on Elections (Comelec) chairman Jose Melo on Wednesday rejected the
idea of conducting the random manual audit before the declaration of the
winners in the May polls, saying that it will only cause unnecessary
delays.
“(We don’t want) a simple audit (to) deter proclamation,” Melo said in a press briefing.
The
poll body chief issued the statement after some groups asserted that
the random manual audit be done right after the election results are
transmitted and before the winners are proclaimed. (See: More voting
machines should be audited to ensure polls’ credibility)
Section
24 of Republic Act 9369 requires a random manual audit to be conducted
in one precinct per congressional district in each province and city.
“Any
difference between the automated and manual count will result in the
determination of root cause and initiate a manual count for those
precincts affected by the computer or procedural error,” it further
said.
But Melo said that conducting the audit before the
proclamation would cause a great delay because the auditors would still
have to “reconcile” the marks on a ballot that were recognized and not
recognized by the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine.
“Magkakaroon
ng variation yan, magdedebate, madedelay yan. Ang mark na ganyan,
bibilangin ng manual, pero hindi binilang ng makina, sino paniniwalaan
mo (There will definitely be a variation, triggering debate, which would
delay everything. Marks like those that are counted manually, but not
counted by the machine—which would you believe),” he said.
He
further said that it would be fine if only the proclamation of the
winners of the local elections would be delayed, but he said that even
the national positions would have to await proclamation.
“If we
are going to delay the proclamation because of a simple concern of one
machine, bakit pa tayo nag-automate (why did we automate at all)?” he
said.
Earlier, the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections
(Namfrel) and the Consortium of Electoral Reforms (CER) also asked the
poll body to increase the number of voting machines that will undergo
auditing.
The groups said that at least 2.5 to 3 percent of the
82,200 PCOS units or five poll machines per congressional district
should be manually audited to give enough assurance that the results of
the elections are credible. —Kimberly Jane T. Tan/JV, GMANews.TV
Proof No 11 http://www.gmanews.tv/story/184694/comelec-chief-no-audit-before-poll-winners-are-proclaimed#
‘EVMs illegally being used for a decade’
Sanjay Sharma, TNN, Feb 22, 2010, 03.44am IST
CHANDIGARH:
The electronic voting machines (EVMs) are being used in violation of
the Information Technology Act 2000, a research paper has revealed.
Author
of the research paper, advocate Ajay Jagga, told The Times of India, on
Sunday that as per IT Act, 2000, a verifiable audit trail has to be
provided in case of any electronic record, which is now admissible as
evidence as per Evidence Act but in case of electronic voting, the voter
does not get any receipt with regard to his voting.
The
research paper recently attracted the attention of experts when a
conference on “EVMs: How trustworthy?” in Chennai passed a unanimous
resolution on February 13 asking Jagga to approach the Election
Commission of India (ECI) for bringing the electronic voting procedure
in tune with IT Act, 2000.
Jagga said he would soon approach ECI
seeking formation of legal committee to remove the illegality or will
knock the doors of court.
The lawyer said, “Unless the voter
gets a receipt like the one we get in ATM or after the use of debit or
credit cards, all electronic transactions including a vote, are
illegal.” What is the evidence that the vote cast has really been
recorded and that it has been recorded in the manner the voter intended,
he asked.
For the purpose and to protect the secrecy of ballot,
all such receipts, after the voter has checked his transaction, should
be put in a box which should remain with ECI to be produced as evidence
in case of a dispute, he said. The government amended the relevant laws
in 1989 to equate EVM with ballot and ballot box to facilitate
transition from ballot paper to EVM but the IT Act 2000 created a new
complication that has to be immediately resolved in the interest of
fairness of things, Jagga pointed out.
The lawyer also proved
that the machine can be tampered with which has been accepted by the
government itself in its letter to withdraw patent applications filed by
Electronics Corporation of India and Bharat Electronics Ltd, makers of
the machine. The PSUs withdrew their patent applications on the ground
that the machine may not be tamper-proof, he said, adding that America
and Germany had to return to ballot paper after their machines were
found wanting.
Proof No 12 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/EVMs-illegally-being-used-for-a-decade/articleshow/5601297.cms
Linked on USA Today 23 Feb. 2010 http://content.usatoday.com/topics/article/Places,+Geography/Countries/India/05zF4kBeFJ47y/1
Hackers can ’steal’ ballots from electronic voting machines- 2009 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop
Indo-Asian News Service
Washington, August 11, 2009
First Published: 16:48 IST(11/8/2009)
Last Updated: 17:06 IST(11/8/2009)
Computer
scientists have demonstrated how criminals could hack an electronic
voting machine (EVM) and ’steal’ votes using a malicious programming
approach that had not been invented when the voting machine was
designed.
The team of scientists from the Universites of California,
San Diego, Michigan and Princeton employed “return-oriented programming”
to force an electronic voting machine to turn against itself.
“Voting
machines must remain secure throughout their entire service lifetime,
and this study demonstrates how a relatively new programming technique
can be used to take control of a voting machine that was designed to
resist takeover, but that did not anticipate this new kind of malicious
programming,” said Hovav Shacham.
Shacham is professor of
computer science at UC San Diego’s (UC-SD )Jacobs School of Engineering
and study co-author. His study demonstrates that return-oriented
programming can be used to execute vote-stealing computations by taking
control of an EVM designed to prevent code injection.
The
computer scientists had no access to the machine’s source code - or any
other proprietary information - when designing the demonstration attack.
By
using just the information that would be available to anyone who bought
or stole a voting machine, the researchers addressed a common criticism
made against voting security researchers: that they enjoy unrealistic
access to the systems they study.
“Based on our understanding of
security and computer technology, it looks like paper-based elections
are the way to go. Probably the best approach would involve fast optical
scanners reading paper ballots. These kinds of paper-based systems are
amenable to statistical audits, which is something the election security
research community is shifting to,” said Shacham.
“You can actually run a modern and efficient election on paper,” he said.
“If you are using electronic voting machines, you need to have a separate paper record at the very least,” he added.
There findings were presented at the 2009 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop.
http://www.erodov.com/forums/hackers-can-steal-ballots-electronic-voting-machines/23603.html
ECI
has to answer for the holes in the bucket identified in the book edited
by Subramanian Swamy and Kalyanaraman, Electronic Voting Machines —
Unconstitutional and Tamperable (2010)
http://www.flipkart.com/electronic-voting-machines-subramanian-swamy-book-8170947987
A private co. had a project to EVMs. Are look-alike EVMs available in the market?
Why
are EVMs being manufactured abroad (with control units burnt-in with
programs in foreign countries using Indian agents)? How can BEL/ECIL
claim IP rights for such foreign-makes? How much money has been spent
for this foreign outsourcing?
ECI should scrap EVMs which are
unconstitutional in any case and revert to paper ballots.Save democracy
which has flourished in India for over 1000 years since Uttaramerur
Inscription of Parakesari Varman of Parantaka Chola days. This was
mentioned in Constituent Assembly debates by the late T. Prakasham, CM
of composite Madras Presidency.
Proof No 13 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/6-EVMs-recovered-from-scrap-dealers/articleshow/7049951.cms
Editorial: E-voting needs a paper trail
Dec. 6, 2010
Eight
years after the “hanging chads” fiasco in Florida, and two months
before one of the most important presidential elections in U.S. history,
Congress still refuses to listen to the nation’s top computer
scientists and require a secure, auditable paper trail for all federal
elections. This despite the latest revelation of a serious problem with
the electronic voting machines used in 34 states — including Virginia
and Maryland — in addition to their well-publicized vulnerability to
hacking. In March, Ohio officials found a programming error that
dropped votes when the data on memory cards from multiple electronic
machines are electronically transferred to a central tabulator, as they
would be on Election Day. Dozens of lawyers are ready to file legal
challenges everywhere e-voting machines are used, even those declared
“qualified” by the National Association of State Election Directors.
Such litigation could tie up final election results far longer than it
would take to count paper ballots. State and local government officials
have spent $1.5 billion on e-voting machines in recent years, most of
it federal funds under the 2002 Help America Vote Act. But instead of
ensuring a fast, secure way to count millions of votes, they got a
technological nightmare. Studies in Ohio and California confirmed that
e-voting machines currently in use can allow individuals to cast
multiple votes, load viruses that crash the system, produce fake tallies
and even change previously cast votes. As recently as May, a spokesman
for Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems)
blamed the Ohio glitch on state-installed anti-virus software, but
eventually admitted to a decade-old “logic error” programmed on all 19
of its touch screen and optical scan models. Computer experts say every
e-voting machine now in use has serious security vulnerabilities. Even a
piece of white tape on a scanner can block votes from being
recorded. “We don’t know how to make secure paperless voting,” says
Stanford computer science professor David Dill, founder of the Verified
Voting Foundation and author of Attackdog, a computer model that
simulates more than 9,000 ways to attack e-voting systems. Dr. Dill and
others like him have warned again and again that an auditable paper
trail is the only way to guarantee a secure election, the very bedrock
of democracy. Congress has less than two months to pass emergency
legislation requiring state election officials to add verifiable paper
trails to all voting in the November election. There is no more time to
lose.
Proof No 14 http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorial-e-voting-needs-paper-trail
Proof No 15 Source: http://www.indianevm.com/
Download:
Proof No 16 http://www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in/outtoday/wp%28c%29No.161of2004.pdf
Proof No 17 http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/supreme-court-asks-election-commission-to-implement-paper-trail-in-evms-429689
Supreme Court asks Election Commission to implement paper trail in EVMs
New
Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission to
introduce in a phased manner the paper trail in Electronic Voting
Machines (EVMs) for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, saying “it is an
indispensable requirement of free, fair and transparent” polls which
will restore confidence of the voters.
The Supreme Court, which
directed the Centre to provide financial assistance to the poll panel
for introduction Vote Verifier Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system with the
EVMs, said it will “ensure the accuracy of the voting system” and also
help in “manual counting of votes in case of dispute.”
“The
‘paper trail’ is an indispensable requirement of free and fair
elections. The confidence of voters in the EVMs can be achieved only
with introduction of the paper trail,” it said.
“EVMs with VVPAT
system ensure the accuracy of the voting system. With an intent to have
fullest transparency in the system and to restore the confidence of the
voters, it is necessary to set up EVMs with VVPAT system because vote is
nothing but an act of expression which has immense importance in
democratic system,” the bench said.
“VVPAT is a system of
printing paper trail when the voter casts his vote, in addition to the
electronic record of the ballot, for the purpose of verification of his
choice of candidate and also for manual counting of votes in case of
dispute,” a bench comprising Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Ranjan Gogoi
said.
The bench asked the Election Commission to introduce VVPAT
in EVMs in gradual stages or geographical-wise in the 2014 general
elections.
While asking the Centre to provide financial
assistance, the bench noted the submissions made by the Election
Commission in its affidavit that it has decided to increase the use of
VVPAT units in a phased manner and has already written to the Ministry
of Law and Justice to issue administrative and financial sanction for
procurement of 20,000 units of VVPAT (10,000 each from M/s BEL and M/s
ECIL) costing Rs. 38.01 crore.
The bench said, “Taking notice of
the pragmatic and reasonable approach of the Election Commission and
considering the fact that in general elections all over India, the
Election Commission has to handle one million (ten lakh) polling booths,
we permit EC to introduce the same in gradual stages or
geographical-wise in the ensuing general elections.”
“The area,
state or actual booth(s) are to be decided by the EC and the EC is free
to implement the same in a phased manner,” it said.
The bench passed the order on two similar petitions; one of those petitions was filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy.
Claiming
that EVMs were open to hacking, Mr Swamy had sought directions to the
poll watchdog to introduce paper trail to easily and cheaply meet the
requirements of proof that the EVM has rightly registered the vote cast
by a voter.
Mr Swamy had moved the Supreme Court against January
2012 order of the Delhi High Court disallowing his prayer to direct
Election Commission to incorporate the system of paper trail in EVMs.
The
bench noted that though initially the poll panel was little reluctant
in introducing paper trail by use of VVPAT, pursuant to its directions,
the Election Commission contacted several expert bodies and technical
advisers and held meetings with national and state level political
parties and carried out demonstrations.
It noted that after a
thorough examination, VVPAT was successfully used in 21 polling stations
of 51-Noksen (ST) Assembly Constituency of Nagaland.
“The
information furnished by the ECI, through the affidavit dated October
1, 2013 clearly shows that VVPAT system is a successful one,” the bench
said.
loyal leaders who are the Owners of Prabuddha Bharath
