It

is a nation where intelligence rules in closed quarters, idiocy in
the
 open. Just like the open toilets under the benign gaze of Mother

Nature — there are more cell phones than toilets in India, a
survey
reports. Oh! the average Indian retorts — and, then, goes on to
do
“business” as usual, sitting on the haunches, as sorry-assed
as
before — or sorts.
We are an indifferent,
intelligently inclined
idiocy — oops! democracy, We make gods out of
mud, then, prostrating
before them, we remain, as before, a dud. And,
some times, in the name
of our fancied little god and his glory, my
motherland’s favorite sons
also kill each other, with the deep ingrained
vigor of all our bestial
ancestry, and like a whiff of wind are
gone — dead.

Lest it
becomes confusing, let’s say it
as it is — we Indians, like every other
human being, are truly one
really, really queer kin of apes. In some
fields, ahead of others and
beyond compare; in other areas, we are as
silly and supercilious as a
bull-hounded mare. In a nutshell, Indians,
at least in the loftier
mystical and evolved spiritual circles “get”
some things well — like
higher metaphysics — while failing miserably,
simplistically, in simple,
elementary physics.

After all,
who in
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, even 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 joker s
have been “blessed” with by the
powers that be.

All “patriotic” hackers of our motherland are going to make 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 this country!

https://www.ndi.org/e-voting-guide/secrecy

The
secrecy of the vote is seen as one of the fundamental principles
required in the conduct of democratic elections. Failure to secure the
secrecy of the vote opens the possibility for voters to prove how they
have voted, facilitating voter coercion and vote buying. Both of these
practices undermine the free expression of the will of the voter and the
possibility for election results to reflect the will of the voters.

If
implemented properly, the paper-based system of voting effectively
protects the secrecy of the vote. In the case of electronic counting,
the same protections that currently exist for the hand counting of paper
ballots should be applied. Electronic voting, however, introduces a
number of additional ways secrecy can be violated. Voting machines
record the choices cast on them by voters, and these votes may be
recorded in the order in which they are cast with a time stamp. This
means if someone knows the order in which voters cast their ballots on a
voting machine or the time at which a voter cast their ballot and has
access to the record of voting on the machine, they could determine the
choices made by each voter.

Appropriate procedures restricting
access to logged transactions on the voting machine would reduce this
threat to the secrecy of the vote. In countries that have experienced
authoritarian trends, these issues are likely to generate suspicions
among citizens concerning breaches of ballot secrecy, and extra steps
may be required to establish public confidence.

Other
developments with electronic voting machines are increasing the threat
to the secrecy of the vote. While the VVPAT is a vital tool in building
confidence in the use of electronic voting machines and in providing an
audit mechanism, it can also be implemented in such a way as to
undermine the secrecy of the vote. Some VVPAT systems have a roll of
paper on which the voter’s choices are printed. As the choices are
printed sequentially, this can be used with the order in which voters
cast their ballots on the voting machine to determine the content of
each person’s vote. Access to the paper audit trail cannot be restricted
in the same way as with electronic records on voting machines, since
the audit trail is meant to be taken out and checked against the
electronic record of the voting machine.

However, not all VVPAT
systems function in this way. Some voting machine paper audit trails
operate a cut-and-drop system where the printed vote is cut from the
roll of paper and drops into an internal ballot box within the voting
machine. This ensures that audit records are randomized in the same way
as placing a paper ballot into a physical ballot box.

A
potential, final challenge to the secrecy of the vote from electronic
voting machines comes from the most recent developments with voting
machines, whereby the machines also conduct voter identification. Most
voting machines still rely on a physical process for voter
identification and authentication, with polling staff checking voter
names against a voter list separate from the voting machine. This means
voter identification data and vote data are held in completely separate
processes (the former through a manual process and the latter through an
electronic process), which are never linked in any way, making it
impossible to link voting data to the voter.

More recent voting
machines are also fulfilling the function of voter identification and
authentication. This identification can be by simply entering an ID
number or passcode for the voter, or it can be through the voting
machine scanning a biometric attribute of the voter and identifying them
from a list of approved voters. Clearly, when the voting machine
identifies the voter, it possesses both pieces of information required
to break the secrecy of the vote and could retain the link between the
two.

Technical solutions are readily available to ensure it is
not possible to link voter data with the value of their vote. However,
EMBs will need to adequately address concerns by stakeholders that this
link is still maintained and that the secrecy of the vote is not
violated.

While challenges related to the secrecy of the vote
with electronic voting machines can be resolved, it is important that
electoral stakeholders are cognizant of them and take all necessary
steps to ensure the secrecy of the vote when considering the use of
voting machines. At the same time, observers should evaluate whether any
aspect of the process might challenge this fundamental principle.

https://www.ndi.org/e-voting-guide/legal-and-procedural-framework

Legal and Procedural Framework

The
use of electronic voting and counting technologies should be defined in
the legal framework. This process can take a considerable amount of
time, particularly since key legal provisions are incorporated at the
legislative level (i.e., in constitutions and electoral laws) as well as
the regulatory level. Amendments should, at a minimum, address the
following: physical and procedural aspects of voting or counting
processes; testing and certification; audit mechanisms and conduct;
status of audit records versus electronic records; transparency
mechanisms; data security and retention; voter identification; and
access to source code. The process of developing amendments should
involve input from electoral stakeholders, including political parties
and civil society.
In order to properly implement electronic voting
or counting technologies, the use of these technologies needs to not
only be in compliance with the constitutional and legal provisions
relating to elections and the general conduct of public affairs, but
must also be defined in the legal framework for elections. The legal
framework includes the constitution, if there is one, the laws relating
to elections, and the secondary legislation (such as regulations, rules
and procedures often passed by electoral management bodies).

While
constitutions rarely say anything specific about electronic voting or
counting technologies, they may include general provisions that are
relevant to the use of these technologies. Germany provides a good
example of this (see Figure 11 below for more details), with the German
Constitutional Court deciding in 2009 that the electronic voting
machines used in Germany did not comply with general transparency
requirements for the electoral process established in the constitution.

In
addition to ensuring that suggested technology solutions are in
compliance with the constitutional framework of a country, consideration
should also be given to whether suggested solutions meet international
standards, including emerging standards for the use of electronic voting
and counting technologies. Election officials and lawmakers may wish to
study other countries’ experiences when considering whether to adopt
such technologies.
Primary and secondary legislation will inevitably
need to be amended in order to accommodate the use of electronic voting
and counting technologies. It is important that key legal provisions
relating to the use of electronic voting or counting system are included
at a legislative level so that the use of these technologies is not
entirely legislated at the regulatory level. The necessary amendments to
the electoral legal framework will vary depending on the technology
being implemented but should cover, at a minimum, the issues listed
below:

    •    Physical Aspects of the Voting or Counting
Process – The use of electronic voting or counting machines will entail
changes to the procedure for the setup and conduct of voting and/or
counting. For example, when direct-recording electronic voting machines
are used, there is no ballot box to prepare and seal. The common
practice of displaying the empty physical ballot box before polling
starts does have a comparable procedure for electronic voting or
counting machines; a display demonstrating that no ballots have been
stored is conducted for observers at the beginning of the process. Some
of the procedures relating to the setup and conduct of voting and/or
counting may be in the election law(s) or may be in secondary
legislation, and both will need to be reviewed and amended to
accommodate the setup and use of electronic voting or counting
technologies.

    •    Procedural Aspects of the Voting and
Counting Process – The timeline for the preparation of the voting or
counting systems should be clearly outlined, as should details of how
the system is to be operated, who is allowed access to it during
elections, how equipment should be stored between elections and how
access to equipment in storage should be regulated and reported.

   
•    Testing and Certification of Technologies – Electronic voting and
counting technologies clearly need to be tested before they are used.
While any responsible election management body would ensure that
sufficient testing of such technologies takes place before they are used
for elections, it may be useful to guarantee that testing takes place
and specify the kinds of testing to be conducted by including these
requirements in the law or in secondary legislation. Likewise, if there
is a process of formal certification of electronic voting and counting
technologies, this should be included in the law as well. The law should
also clearly identify the institutions with the authority to provide
this certification, the timeframe for certification and the standards
and requirements against which certification will take place.

   
•    Audit Mechanisms – The need for audit mechanisms for electronic
voting and counting technologies is an emerging international standard.
In order to ensure that this standard is met, the requirement for an
audit trail should be included in the law. The nature of the audit
mechanisms may also be specified if relevant — for example, any
requirement for a voter-verifiable audit trail often used with
electronic voting machines.

    •    Conduct of Audits – Audits
should be conducted in order to generate trust in the use of electronic
voting or counting machines and to ensure that these technologies
function correctly. Many different kinds of audits can be conducted,
including audits of the results, audits of internal logs, audits of
storage and access to devices, and so on. The law should clearly
identify which audits are to be implemented, when such audits are to
take place and the scale of the audits. In addition to requiring audits,
which should be provided irrespective of whether there are any
electoral challenges, the law should also identify conditions under
which recounts are to take place.

    •    Status of Audit
Records Versus Electronic Records – In the event that the conduct of an
audit determines a different result than is produced electronically by
an electronic voting or counting machine, the law should specify how to
deal with the situation.

    •    Transparency Mechanisms – The
use of electronic voting and counting machines entails the conduct of
existing electoral procedures in different ways, as well as the conduct
of new stages in the electoral process (for example, the configuration
of electronic voting machines). In the interest of transparency,
appropriate procedures will need to be developed to ensure that
political actors and observers have access to these different and new
processes so that they can provide meaningful oversight of the process.
These transparency measures should be clearly defined in the legal
framework so that observers and party representatives understand and can
utilize their access rights.

    •    Data Security and
Retention – It is unlikely that existing laws and procedures adequately
cover the issue of electronic data security when using electronic voting
or counting machines. The way in which all electoral data is secured
and stored will need to be provided for in the legal framework, as will
the timeframe and procedures for deletion of the electronic data, and
these provisions must be in accordance with existing data protection
legislation.

    •    Voter Identification – If
identification/authentication is being incorporated into the electronic
voting process, then this may require legislation, whether using
biometrics or making mandatory a particular form of machine-readable ID.
In such cases it is essential that the secrecy of the vote be protected
through de-linking the vote and the identity of the voter.

   
•    Access to Source Code – It may be prudent to legislate whether
source code is open source or not, in addition to legislating the
mechanisms for any access by stakeholders.
Many of these issues are
covered in greater detail later in this part of the guide, and the
intention here is to identify the issues that are relevant for inclusion
in order to properly legislate for the use of electronic voting or
counting technologies.

It is clear from the preceding discussion
that adapting the legal framework for the use of electronic voting or
counting technologies will entail considerable amendments to laws and
secondary legislation. Electoral stakeholders must be involved in the
development of these legislative and regulatory amendments. Initially,
political parties and observers should be consulted on the ways in which
the legislation needs to be changed, especially from a transparency and
oversight perspective. Once legislation is passed, the election
management body will need to fully brief political parties, the media
and civil society on the changes that have been made.

https://www.ndi.org/e-voting-guide/examples/constitutionality-of-electronic-voting-germany

The Constitutionality of Electronic Voting in Germany

After
a largely successful trial period spanning from 1998 to 2005, two
citizens challenged the constitutionality of electronic voting before
the German Constitutional Court. Though the public generally viewed the
voting system in a favorable manner throughout the trial period, the
actual legality of the technology was not fully assessed in advance of
implementation.

Germany piloted its first electronic voting
machines, supplied by the Dutch company NEDAP, in Cologne in 1998. The
trial was seen as successful, and one year later Cologne used electronic
voting machines for its entire European Parliament elections. Soon
other cities followed suit, and by the 2005 general election nearly 2
million German voters were using these NEDAP machines to cast votes.
Reaction to the use of these electronic voting machines was generally
very positive among voters, who found the machines to be easy to use,
and among election administrators, who were able to reduce the number of
polling stations and staff in each polling station.
However, after
the 2005 election, two voters brought a case before the German
Constitutional Court after unsuccessfully raising a complaint with the
Committee for the Scrutiny of Elections. The case argued that the use of
electronic voting machines was unconstitutional and that it was
possible to hack the voting machines, thus the results of the 2005
election could not be trusted.

The German Constitutional Court
upheld the first argument, concurring that the use of the NEDAP voting
machines was unconstitutional. The Court noted that, under the
constitution, elections are required to be public in nature and that all
essential steps of an election are subject to the possibility of public
scrutiny unless other constitutional interests justify an exception . .
. The use of voting machines which electronically record the voters’
votes and electronically ascertain the election result only meets the
constitutional requirements if the essential steps of the voting and of
the ascertainment of the result can be examined reliably and without any
specialist knowledge of the subject . . . The very wide-reaching effect
of possible errors of the voting machines or of deliberate electoral
fraud make special precautions necessary in order to safeguard the
principle of the public nature of elections.30

Making it clear that the court’s decision did not rule out the use of voting machines in principle, it stated that:
The
legislature is not prevented from using electronic voting machines in
elections if the possibility of a reliable examination of correctness,
which is constitutionally prescribed, is safeguarded. A complementary
examination by the voter, by the electoral bodies or the general public
is possible for example with electronic voting machines in which the
votes are recorded in another way beside electronic storage.

Religious freedom: US report fails to understand this country

USCIRF report 2016, USCIRF report this country, USCIRF  report 2016, US report on religious freedom in this country.

The
government Tuesday said that the US Commission on International
Religious Freedom (USCIRF) report, which stated that religious tolerance
has deteriorated in this country in 2015, “failed to show proper
understanding of this , its Constitution and society”.

This
country  is a vibrant pluralistic society founded on strong democratic
principles. The Architect of Modern  Constitution fathered by Dr BR
Ambedkar guarantees fundamental rights to all its citizens, including
the right to freedom of religion.

In its annual report, the
USCIRF asked the this country’s government to publicly rebuke officials
and religious leaders who make derogatory statements about religious
communities. Stating that incidents of religious freedom violations
increased in this country  since 2015, the report stated, Minority
communities, especially Christians, Muslims, and Sikhs, SC/STs
experienced numerous incidents of intimidation, harassment, and
violence, largely at the hands of stealth, shadowy discriminating 
hindutva anti- nationalist cult.

It also blamed the BJP (Bahuth
Jiyadha Psychopaths) controlled by 1% intolerant, violent, militant,
lunatic, mentally retarded cannibal psychopath chitpawan brahmin
Rakshasha Swayam Sevaks and all its avathars VHP (Visha Hintuva
Psychopaths), ABVP (All Brahmin Venouous Psychopaths), Bhajan Dal etc.,
for tacitly supporting such a cult, and using religiously-divisive
language to further inflame tensions.