30 - Tue 6 Apr 2021 LESSON 3637 Buddha-Sasana-The History of the Sasana -The History of the Sasana-100% Masks, 100% Votes in fraud EVMs, 100% success for BJ(P)Ltd. and company, 100 % defeat for all their opponents who will talk about the fraud EVMs after the results are declared.
VOTING MACHINE (EVM)-ALL APRIL DUCK FOOLS -அனைத்து ஏப்ரல்வாத்து
முட்டாள்கள்
for Discovery of Aboriginal Awakened One Societies Universe for the
welfare, happiness, peace for all societies and for them to attain
Eternal Bliss as their Final Goal as enshrined in the marvelous, modern
Constitution with full freedom, equality, liberty, and fraternity
exposing the just 0.1% intolerant, violent, militant, number one
terrorists of the world, ever shooting, mob lunching, anti national
traitors, practising hatred, anger, jealousy, delusion stupidity against
99.9% all aboriginal awakened societies foreigners kicked out from Bene
Israel, Tibet, Africa Eastern Europe, Western Germany, Northern
Europe,South Russia, Hungary parliamentarians,
executives,judges, cheating election commissioners and the PRESSTITUTE
media for their greed for money and power gobble the master key by
tampering the fraud EVMs through the own mother’s flesh eaters, slaves
of slaves, stooges, boot lickers, chamchas, chelas the Mad murderer of
democratic institutions (Modi) Omit shah who omit their opponents only
to serve their Sarvajan Samaj masters will get only 0.1% votes with
ballot papers.
All Aboriginal Awakened Societies are aware of the fact that they are
the masters of producing their food like all other living beings like
the birds, animal etc.,to overcome hunger which is the worst illness as
said by the Awakened One with Awareness, the Buddha. Human beings are
capable of growing dwarf, plants for growing vegetables and fruits.
me chor EVM That proves that the Danda is used by just 0.1% foreigners
kicked our from Bene Israel, Tibet, Africa, Northern Europe, Western
Germany, South Russia, Western Europe, Hungary chitpavan brahmins of
Roedy Swayam Sevaks (RSS) use these Dandas in their shakas, Bevakoof
Jhoothe Psychopaths (BJ(P) Ltd, Congi are all chitpavan brahminised
organisations including the communists.
shah and the Mad murderer of democratic institutions (Modi) have
declared the result before the votes are counted to omit all their
opponents as they keep tampering the fraud EVMs to gobble the Master
Key. Until these EVMs are replaced with Ballot Papers this loot will
continue. But 99.9% All Aboriginal Awakened Societies (Sarvajan Samaj)
are least bothered because they are aware Hunger is the worst Illness
said Buddha the Awakened One with Awareness. Birds, Animals and all
other living species naturally get their food unlike human beings where
the farmers produce all sorts of grains. During Emperor Ashoka’s rule
fruit bearing trees were all over the country. Now we can plant dwarf
fruit and vegetable every where so that grains, vegetables, fruits,
greens etc., could be exchanged with out depending on anyone and lead a
happy and peaceful life like other living species.
100% মাস্ক, প্ৰৱঞ্চনাৰ ইভিএমত 100% ভোট, বিজে(পি)লিমিটেড আৰু কোম্পানীৰ বাবে 100% সফলতা, ফলাফল ঘোষণা হোৱাৰ পিছত প্ৰৱঞ্চনাৰ ইভিএমৰ বিষয়ে কথা পাতিব তেওঁলোকৰ সকলো বিৰোধীৰ বাবে 100% পৰাজয়।
99.9% সকলো আদিবাসী জাগ্ৰত সমাজে এই বিষয়ে অৱগত যে তেওঁলোকে চৰাই, জন্তু আদিৰ দৰে আন সকলো জীৱৰ দৰে তেওঁলোকৰ খাদ্য উৎপাদন কৰাত নিপুণ, ভোক দূৰ কৰিবলৈ যিহৈছে সজাগতা, বুদ্ধৰ সৈতে জাগ্ৰত ৱানৰ দ্বাৰা কোৱা ৰখা আটাইতকৈ বেয়া ৰোগ। মানুহে বামুণ, পাচলি আৰু ফল খেতিৰ বাবে উদ্ভিদ খেতি কৰিবলৈ সক্ষম।
কাৰ মে চোৰ ইভিএম যি প্ৰমাণ কৰে যে দাণ্ডা মাত্ৰ 0.1% বিদেশীয়ে ব্যৱহাৰ কৰে যি আমাক বেইন ইজৰাইলৰ পৰা লাথি মাৰিছিল, তিব্বত, আফ্ৰিকা, উত্তৰ ইউৰোপ, পশ্চিম জাৰ্মানী, দক্ষিণ ৰাছিয়া, পশ্চিম ইউৰোপ, হাংগেৰী চিত্তপাৱন ব্ৰাহ্মণ ৰোডি স্বয়ম সেৱক (আৰএছএছ)ৰ হাংগেৰী চিত্তপাৱন ব্ৰাহ্মণসকলে এই দণ্ডবোৰ তেওঁলোকৰ শাকাত ব্যৱহাৰ কৰে, বেভাকুফ ঝুথে চাইকোপেথচ (বিজে(পি) লিমিটেড, কংগী হৈছে কমিউনিষ্টসহ সকলো চিত্ৰপৱন ব্ৰাহ্মণ সংগঠন।
ওমিত শ্বাহ আৰু গণতান্ত্ৰিক প্ৰতিষ্ঠানসমূহৰ উন্মাদ হত্যাকাৰীয়ে (মোডী) ভোট গণনা কৰাৰ আগতে তেওঁলোকৰ সকলো বিৰোধীক বাদ দিবলৈ ফলাফল ঘোষণা কৰিছে কিয়নো তেওঁলোকে মাষ্টাৰ কী কঢ়িয়াই নিয়াৰ বাবে প্ৰৱঞ্চনাৰ ই ভি এমবোৰ তছনছ কৰি আছে। যেতিয়ালৈকে এই ই ভি এমবোৰ বেলট পেপাৰৰ সৈতে সলনি কৰা নহয় তেতিয়ালৈকে এই লুণ্ঠন অব্যাহত থাকিব। কিন্তু 99.9% সকলো আদিবাসী জাগ্ৰত সমাজ (সৰ্বজন সমাজ) আটাইতকৈ কম চিন্তিত কিয়নো তেওঁলোক অৱগত যে ভোক হৈছে আটাইতকৈ বেয়া ৰোগ, বুদ্ধ দ্য এৱেকন্সড ৱান উইথ এৱাৰনেকয়। চৰাই, জন্তু আৰু আন সকলো জীৱিত প্ৰজাতিয়ে প্ৰাকৃতিকভাৱে মানুহৰ বিপৰীতে তেওঁলোকৰ খাদ্য প্ৰাপ্ত কৰে য’ত কৃষকসকলে সকলো ধৰণৰ শস্য উৎপাদন কৰে। সম্ৰাট অশোকৰ শাসনকালত ফল যুক্ত গছ গোটেই দেশতে আছিল। এতিয়া আমি প্ৰতিটো ঠাইতে বামুণ ফল আৰু পাচলি ৰোপণ কৰিব পাৰোঁ যাতে শস্য, পাচলি, ফল, সেউজীয়া আদি যিকোনো লোকৰ ওপৰত নিৰ্ভৰ কৰি বাহিৰৰ সৈতে বিনিময় কৰিব পাৰি আৰু আন জীৱিত প্ৰজাতিৰ দৰে সুখী আৰু শান্তিপূৰ্ণ জীৱন যাপন কৰিব পাৰি।
ইলেক্ট্রনিক ভোটিং মেশিন (ইভিএম) - সমস্ত এপ্রিল হাঁস মূর্খ -அஅஅத்து ஏஏ்ரல்ாத்து மு்்டா்கள்
ഇലക്ട്രോണിക് വോട്ടിംഗ് മെഷീൻ (ഇവിഎം) - ഏപ്രിൽ താറാവ് വിഡ് s ികളായിരിക്കുക - തക്കത്രിക
100% முகமூடிகள், மோசடி EVMS இல் 100% வாக்குகள், பி.ஜே. (ப) லிமிட்டிற்கான 100% வெற்றி. மற்றும் நிறுவனம், 100% தோற்கடிக்கப்பட்ட அனைத்து எதிரிகளுக்கும் தோல்வி அடைந்த பிறகு மோசடி EVMS பற்றி பேசப்படும்.
டான்டா வெறும் 0.1% வெளிநாட்டினரால் பயன்படுத்தப்படுகின்றது என்று நிரூபிக்கிறது, திபெத், ஆபிரிக்கா, வடக்கு ஐரோப்பா, மேற்கு ஜெர்மனி, தென் ரஷ்யா, மேற்கு ஐரோப்பா, ஹங்கேரி சித்ஸ்பான் பிராமணர்களின் ரூடியில் ஸ்வயம் சாவாக்ஸ் (ஆர்எஸ்எஸ்) அவர்களது ஷாகஸில் உள்ள டான்டாக்கள், பவாக்கோப்போ ஜோஹூபோப்பாத்ஸ் (பி.ஜே. (பி) லிமிடெட், கம்யூனிஸ்டுகள் உட்பட அனைத்து சித்த்பவன் பிரம்மினியஸ் அமைப்புகளாகும்.
despite many uncomfortable questions over the years - the EC has never
bothered to clear the air in a transparent manner. Never in the history
of India has the Election Commission come under such a cloud. Regardless
of who won in 2019 (and subsequent elections)…the trust in the
Election Commission and its formidable ‘independent’ reputation has been
seriously damaged.
Chapter 5
The History of the Sasana
One day, the Buddha sneezed.50 The monks present called out,
“Bless you!”
This was a conventional idiom in Buddha’s India and the Buddha’s response
should have been,
“Bless you too.”
But instead he posed a question, something like,
“Wait a minute. Do you think that saying that will influence my future
well-being?”
The monks replied, “Well, no, actually.”
“Then you are not to say it!”
And thereby a new rule circulated that monks were expected to follow.
However, lay people began to complain about how unmannerly all the monks
had suddenly become.
“I blessed a perfectly good monk who sneezed and he didn’t even
bless me back!”
“How rude! The impudent cad.”
When this was reported back to the Buddha he rescinded the rule that he had
earlier proclaimed.
“Monks, householders need blessings. When someone says, ‘Bless
you’, I permit you to answer, ‘Bless you too’.”
This little story is indicative of the Buddha’s willingness to adapt to druthers.
The Buddha gave us a Buddhism that would be subject to and tolerate
embellishment. Perhaps this is part of the reason that it gained a place as the
first world religion as it simply passed peacefully from one land to another.
Moreover, Buddhism after the Buddha’s death was open to evolution because
it lacked a central authority to impose orthodoxy or orthopraxis, with the
integrity of the Dharma entrusted independently to each local monastic
sangha. It was open to evolution because its Great Standards (mahāpadesa)
made the Dharma effectively extensible on functional grounds. It was
susceptible to local mutation because the Buddha asked that the texts be taught
in local vernaculars rather than more widely understood lingua francas.51 It
was open to evolution when it encountered selective pressures in the many
cultures into which it spread. It was also open to evolution as democratizing
pressures countered its establishment of a singular attainment as the
benchmark for salvation. It was also open to evolution as monastic scholars
tended to over-elaborate the Buddha’s thought in different sometimes highly
speculative ways. And indeed the flower of Buddhism would change with time
and place, sometimes developing wider leaves or deeper roots, sometimes
developing a shorter stem or requiring more sun or less water, but in most
places still recognizable as the same flower, one that still produced from time
to time a dazzling blossom and propagated itself still further.
Let’s get historical. Just as organisms change from generation to generation,
the flower of the Sasana has changed to produce many varieties, and continues
to change. The metaphor here is genetic. We can talk of three kinds of
processes that have together created the diversity of today’s Sasana:
propagation, the process whereby any particular Buddhist tradition extends
itself into new regions or populations; evolution, the mutative process of
change, typically adaptation through natural selection to regional or cultural
preferences; and cross-fertilization, the process of borrowing traits from one
tradition (Buddhist or non-Buddhist) into a distinct Buddhist tradition. Most
instructive for consideration are the resilience and malleability of the Sasana:
Where does it say firm and where does it change?
13, 2009: Assembly Election in Arunachal Pradesh. Repoll was ordered in
two polling stations in otherwise peaceful Ziro. Reason - tampering of
electronic voting machine which was started in India with much fanfare
some years back.
Tech Computer Science, IIT Delhi ; MS Computer Science Rutgers Univ
Address : F1A, Supath2, nr Juna Vadaj Bus Stand, Ashram Road, Ahmedabad –
13 (Sunday : 10 am – 2 pm)Phone: 98251-27780 ; website : www.rahulmehta.com ; email : MehtaRahulC@yahoo.com
1 This is not an allegation (as of yet) This article is NOT an
allegation. It is to only show that EVMs can be tempered at
super-industrial scale byfew people at top. Essentially, I am making
allegation against EVMs, that EVMs are temperable in an industrial
scaleto favor some party such Congress etc and that too with just 10
people at top. I am not making allegations against anyparty or EC or BEL
in this article. Some 100,000 new EVMs were made in Dec-2008. I am only
proposing one way bywhich people at top may rig 100,000 EVMs with mere
10-12 men. As of now, I am not claiming they did it. Becauseto claim
that X did action-A, I need to first convince people that action-A is
indeed possible and do-able. So for now, Ionly want to show that
tempering100,000 EVMs is possible with few people. Once I have shown
that is do-able, I mayor may not show that they were in position to
implement the tempering mechanism I suggested. In this article, I
haveused following fictitious names to show the process (resemblances to
any real names is an unintended coincidence) CECX : A fictitious head
of a fictitious body called ECX, in charge of electionsCongressX : A
fictitious party interested in tempering EVMs to favor its candidates.
Chiefs : The persons in charge of manufacturing EVMs in fictitious body
named as BELX This is a summary document and many details have been
skipped as I wanted to keep it no more than 8 pages.The detailed
document is at http://rahulmehta.com/evm2.pdf
. 2 Remote control EVM machine EVMs use a custom imported chip which is
made in USA or Japan. BELX and ECIX has no disclosed thename of the
company which makes the chip and also not disclosed the owners of the
company. So for now, we do notknow whether the company is owned by CIA
or US Military or SoniaX or Rahul Mehta (author of this article).
BELXclaims that EVMs cannot receive radio signals. The EVMs are not
given to any candidates of public for examination.So it is not possible
for citizens to detect if the EVM dont have ability to receive radio
signals. But it is possible thatsome 10% to 20% EVMs are made in a way
that they can receive and process radio signals. The radio technology
hasso advanced that a 2 mm by 2 mm chip can receive radio signals from a
van standing 100 meters away (such smallpassive chip cannot send to a
distance, but can certainly receive). If these EVMs use such chip, then
candidatenumber can be communicated to EVM from a van anytime before
counting and EVM can change the votes inside it.And even the van driver
need not suspect. It could be some van used by media persons etc who are
merely asked gonear booths or collector’s warehouses to give coverage,
and the equipment in van can send the candidate number to theEVM. So
even the driver may not know that his van is being used to send
“favorite candidate number” to the EVMs. Iassume that at least 20% of
EVMs are radio enabled, unless proven otherwise. But for now, lets say
EVMs dont haveradio waves. Then can they be made “pro-CongressX”? 3 Why
pre-programmed bias in EVMs was thought to be useless so far? We all
know that a programmer can indeed write code in EVM, that favors a
particular serial number. Pls note- a particular serial number only. And
if top persons in BELX agree to put such tempered code in EVM, then
there isno technological barrier to stop them. But till date, everyone
thinks that no one can write a code that would favorCongressX, as the
serial number of CongressX candidate is undecided when the coder is
writing the EVM code and undecided even when the EVM is being shipped to
the District from BELX. eg say a coder and BELX Chiefs decide tofavor
CongressX. Now the EVM is to be shipped out in Jan-2009. CongressX
candidate will get the serial number inApr-2009. Then which candidate
number should the program be coded to give more votes? The Congress’s
candidatenumber will vary from seat to seat. So if the programmer
programs EVM to give more vote to candidate number 1,then only in some
20% cases only CongressX will be no. 1 . And so in 20% cases, it would
benefit Congress and in80% cases it would hurt Congress. Some anti-EVM
people have hypothesized that some passkeys can be inputted inEVMs to
communicate the favorite candidate number. But then inputting this key
combination in 100,000 of EVMsneed 100,000 men to be sent at the booth
and is a difficult task. So this way was ruled out due to logistics. So
till now,it was stated by “experts” and accepted by gullible that “BELX
cannot make an EVM that would favor CongressX”. 4 BELX can make
pre-programmed EVMs that favors CongressX But I have shown that a
“pro-CongressX” EVMs be made !! How can EVMs be programmed to
favorCongressX? Well, pls read this article and if you have any
questions, pls call me at 98251-27780 . 5 A brief description of
election related dates Pls note that EVMs can support only 64
candidates, above which EC will have to use paper ballots. Nowfollowing
dates play important role in “how EVMs can be made to favor CongressX”.
Apr-2 : Say opening date to fill form. Apr-8 : Last date to fill form
Apr-10 : Candidates will get accepted or disqualified by RO (Returning
Officer, mostly District Collector). Apr-11 : Candidates of CongressX,
other recognized parties will get to know their serial number on EVM (*)
Apr-13, 3 pm : Last day , time to withdraw Apr-13, 5 pm : Total number
of candidates will be known at Apr-13, 5 pm. Pls note this : total
number of candidates plays important role in how EVMs can be made to
favor CongressX [* - See section-6 why recognized party candidates can
accurately guess their candidate number] 6 The recognized parties’
candidates are mostly in number 1-5 EC (Election Commission) divides
candidates in a constituency into 3 blocks : National or State
RecognizedParties, Unrecognized Registered Parties and Independents. In
each block, the candidates are alphabetically ordered bytheir names in
the local language. There are 7 Nationally recognized parties and
different states have0-4 Staterecognized parties. So if all recognized
parties put their candidates, the number of candidates in first block
will go to7-11. But the reality is that all recognized parties don t put
candidates in every seat. eg CPM has not put candidates inmany seats
since ages. In general, having 5 recognized party on one seat is a rare
event. And so a recognized Party iswill get a number between 1-5 with
99% guarantee in general. And as a reality check, one can look at 2009
election.All Congress candidates got serial number between 1-5 on the
EVM. 7 Step-One : Nature of the tempered code to put in EVMs Say BELX
chiefs made 5 different types of tempered EVMs. Type-1 favors candidate
number = (nCandidates + 1) mod 5 + 1Type-2 favors candidate number =
(nCandidates + 2) mod 5 + 1Type-3 favors candidate number = (nCandidates
+ 3) mod 5 + 1Type-4 favors candidate number = (nCandidates + 4) mod 5 +
1Type-5 favors candidate number = (nCandidates + 5) mod 5 + 1 (what is
mod?) Now what is “mod”? It is remainder left after division, i.e. ( 16
mod 5 ) means the number you are left withwhen you divide 16 by 5 which
1. So (1 mod 5 ) = 1 , (2 mod 5 ) = 2 , (3 mod 5 ) = 3 , (4 mod 5 ) = 4 ,
(5 mod 5 ) = 0 ,(6 mod 5 ) = 1 , (7 mod 5 ) = 2 . The *mod will keep
repeating. There are only 5 values (n mod 5) can have.2 The tempered EVM
use the above formula for selecting favorite candidate. Eg1 say one
constituency has say200 tempered EVMs of type-3. Now say that
constituency has say if nCandidates = 19. Then the tempered EVMsthere
will favor candidate number (19 + 2) mod 5 + 1 = 21 mod 5 + 1 = 1 + 1 = 2
. i.e. it will favor candidate number2. Eg2. say one constituency has
say 200 tempered EVMs of type-4. Now say that constituency has say if
nCandidates= 11. Then the tempered EVMs there EVM will favor candidate
number (11 + 4) mod 5 + 1 = 15 mod 5 + 1 = 0 + 1 =1 . i.e. it will favor
candidate number 1. So BELX made file types of tempered EVMs. A
tempered EVM decidescandidate to favor based on total number of
candidates based on the following table Table tempered EVMs follow (Pls
read column headings carefully) Row# Serial #EVMwillfavor
Type Number of candidates on that EVM Type-1 6 , 11 , 16 , 21 , 26 , 31
, 36 , 41 , 46 , 51 , 56 or 61 candidates 7 , 12 , 17 , 22 , 27 , 32 ,
37 , 42 , 47 , 52 , 57 or 62 candidates 8 , 13 , 18 , 23 , 28 , 33 , 38 ,
43 , 48 , 53 , 58 or 63 candidates 4, 9,14,19,24,29,34,39,44,49,54…64
candidates 5, 10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55,60 candidates Type-2 6 , 11
, 16 , 21 , 26 , 31 , 36 , 41 , 46 , 51 , 56 or 61 candidates 7 , 12 ,
17 , 22 , 27 , 32 , 37 , 42 , 47 , 52 , 57 or 62 candidates 3,
8,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,53…or63candidates 4,
9,14,19,24,29,34,39,44,49,54…or64candidates 5 , 10 , 15 , 20 , 25 , 30
, 35 , 40 , 45 , 50 , 55 , 60 candidates Type-3 6 , 11 , 16 , 21 , 26 ,
31 , 36 , 41 , 46 , 51 , 56 or 61 candidates 2,
7,12,17,22,27,32,37,42,47,52…or62candidates 3,
8,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,53…or63candidates 4,
9,14,19,24,29,34,39,44,49,54…or64candidates 5 , 10 , 15 , 20 , 25 , 30
, 35 , 40 , 45 , 50 , 55 , 60 candidates Type-4 6 , 11 , 16 , 21 , 26 ,
31 , 36 , 41 , 46 , 51 , 56 or 61 candidates 2,
7,12,17,22,27,32,37,42,47,52…or62candidates 3,
8,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,53…or63candidates 4,
9,14,19,24,29,34,39,44,49,54…or64candidates 5 , 10 , 15 , 20 , 25 , 30
, 35 , 40 , 45 , 50 , 55 , 60 candidates Type-5 6 , 11 , 16 , 21 , 26 ,
31 , 36 , 41 , 46 , 51 , 56 or 61 candidates 3,
7,12,17,22,27,32,37,42,47,.or 62 candidates 8 , 13 , 18 , 23 , 28 , 33 ,
38 , 43 , 48 , 53 , 58 or 63 candidates 4,
9,14,19,24,29,34,39,44,49,…or64 candidates 5 , 10 , 15 , 20 , 25 , 30 ,
35 , 40 , 45 , 50 , 55 , 60 candidates 132435415264758192 10 311 5 12
113 214 315 416 117 218 319 420 521 222 323 424 525 1 I would politely
request the reader to read further AFTER answering following questions :
If EVM is of Type-3 and number of candidates are 12, whom will that EVM
favor? (Hint : see row#12)2. If EVM is of Type-2 and number of
candidates are 24, whom will that EVM favor? (Hint : see row#9)3. If EVM
is of Type-1 and number of candidates are 19, whom will that EVM favor?
3 4. If EVM is of Type-4 and number of candidates are 21, whom will
that EVM favor?5. If EVM is of Type-5 and number of candidates are 10,
whom will that EVM favor?6. Will EVM of Type-1 always favor candidate
#1?
Type-2 always favor candidate #3? Lets make converse of the above table.
The following converse table will be used in Step-3 by SoniaX. Irequest
the reader to reach each of the 30 lines in the following converse
table. Converse table to be used by SoniaX in step-3(Pls read column
headings carefully) Type serial # ofcandidateSoniaXwants tofavor Type-1 1
2 3 4 5 Type-2 1 2 3 4 5 Type-3 1 2 3 4 5 Type-4 1 2 3 4 5 Type-5 1 2 3
4 5 Row# Number of candidates that seat should have 1 4,
9,14,19,24,29,34,39,44,49,54,59or64candidates 2
5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 or60 candidates 3
6,11,16,21,26,31,36,41,46,51,56or61 4
7,12,17,22,27,32,37,42,47,52,57or62 5
8,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,53,58or63 6 3,
8,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,53,58or63candidates 7 4,
9,14,19,24,29,34,39,44,49,54,59or64candidates 8
5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55or60 candidates 9
6,11,16,21,26,31,36,41,46,51,56or61 candidates 10
7,12,17,22,27,32,37,42,47,52,57or62 candidates 11 2,
7,12,17,22,27,32,37,42,47,52,57or62candidates 12 3,
8,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,53,58or63candidates 13 4,
9,14,19,24,29,34,39,44,49,54,59or64candidates 14
5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55,or60 candidates 15
6,11,16,21,26,31,36,41,46,51,56or61 candidates 16 1,
6,11,16,21,26,31,36,41,46,51,56or61candidates 17 2,
7,12,17,22,27,32,37,42,47,52,57or62candidates 18 3,
8,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,53,58or63candidates 19 4,
9,14,19,24,29,34,39,44,49,54,59or64candidates
candidatescandidatescandidates 20 5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55or60
21 5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55,or60 22
6,11,16,21,26,31,36,41,46,51,56or61 23
7,12,17,22,27,32,37,42,47,52,57or62 24
8,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,53,58or63 25
9,14,19,24,29,34,39,44,49,54,59or64 candidatescandidates
candidatescandidatescandidatescandidates I would politely request the
reader to read further AFTER answering following questions : If EVM is
of Type-3 and your serial number is 5, how many candidates should that
seat have to favor you ? If EVM is of Type-1 and your serial number is
1, how many candidates should that seat have to favor you ? 4 10.If EVM
is of Type-2 and your serial number is 3, is its must that EVM will
favor you only if you have 5candidates? Or will any other total number
of candidates would do? 11.If EVM is of Type-5 and your serial number is
2, is its must that EVM will favor you only if you have 11candidates?
Or will any other total number of candidates would do? 8 Step-Two :
Ensuring each seat has same type of tempered EVMs CECX has to ensure
that 200 tempered EVMs go ton each of the 500 Constituency, in away that
Type of eachEVM is a constituency is same. How can he ensure that? He
and BELX chiefs can ensure this as follows : • BELX chiefs send 1st
shipment of 20000 EVMs between dates say Jan-01 and Jan-06• BELX chiefs
send 2nd shipment of 20000 EVMs between dates say Jan-07 and Jan-13•
BELX chiefs send 3rd shipment of 20000 EVMs between dates say Jan-14 and
Jan-20• BELX chiefs send 4th shipment of 20000 EVMs between dates say
Jan-21 and Jan-27• BELX chiefs send 5th shipment of 20000 EVMs between
dates say Jan-27 and Feb-07 • CECX asks staff to send 200 EVMs from 1st
shipment to each Constituency-001 to 100• CECX asks staff to send 200
EVMs from 2nd shipment to each Constituency-101 to 200• CECX asks staff
to send 200 EVMs from 3rd shipment to each Constituency-201 to 300• CECX
asks staff to send 200 EVMs from 4th shipment to each Constituency-301
to 400• CECX asks staff to send 200 EVMs from 5th shipment to each
Constituency-501 to 500 So each seat has 200 tempered EVMs of same type.
And only CECX, SoniaX know the type for each Constituency. 9 Step-Three
: Adjusting the total number of candidates I request the reader to look
at the Converse Table given in Section-7. Now take some Constituency
such as Gandhinagar as example. Say in Mar-2009, Gandhinagar
Constituencygot 200 tempered EVMs of type-2. Now on Apr-9, CongressX
knew that its candidature number, say it was number 2.How many
candidates should be in race so that EVMs of type-3 favor the CongressX
candidate? Pls look at theconverse table row#7. The answer is : if
SoniaX can ensure that Gandhinagar has exactly 4 , 9 , 19 , 24 , 29 or
… 64candidates in race, then all EVMs which are of type-2 will favor
the no. 2 which is CongressX candidate. But how can SoniaX ensure that
number of candidates in race in Gandhinagar are 4 , 9 , 14 , 19 , 24 ,
29 or …64 and not some other number? She can tell the Congress
candidate that astrologer has asked that the number ofcandidates must be
4 , 9 , 14 , 19 or … 64. And CongressX candidate has to be told to
put 4 spurious independents andhave 0-4 withdraw the form at last
moment, so that nCandidates 4 , 9 , 14 , 19 , 24 , 29 , or … , 64. Let
me explain in more detail. Say it is Apr-13, 3pm. The collector will
generally close his office door at 3pmand ask a peon not to let any more
persons come inside. Say the CongressX candidate has 4 spurious
independentcandidates named as say A, B C and D. They are in collector’s
room for withdrawal, along with 1-10 other people whowant to withdraw.
Now all the CongressX candidate has to manage is that these 4 people are
at the end of the queueand not in-between. Now say all other candidates
who had entered the room have either withdrawn or refused towithdraw
(in which case they have left the room) and at the end only A, B C and D
are left. Number ofcandidates, beforeA, B, C, D arecalled Decision
Final number of candidates 20 A withdraws ; B, C, D stay 20 – 1 = 19 28
All A, B, C, D withdraw 28 – 4 = 24 32 A, B, C withdraw ; D stays 32 – 3
= 29 5 31 A, B, withdraw ; C, D stay 31 – 2 = 29 IOW, using 0-4
candidates at the end of the withdrawal queue on Apr-13 , he can ensure
that number ofcandidates in the race are 4, 9, 14, 19, 24. 29, or …
64. This is not difficult as RO or anyone is not even suspecting
thatEVMs use nCandidates as any parameter to rig elections. And in
states where Congress-X has CM, SoniaX can askCM to ask RO to put the
spurious independents at the end of the queue so that they have last
word n nCandidates. In 5% cases, say CongressX fails to ensure that
candidate number is what they need. Then they lose 5% EVMsto opponents.
But in 95% cases, the tempered EVMs will support CongressX candidate.
The RO (District Collector) isnot a person in conspiracy. And the
Congress X candidate too need not be aware of this conspiracy, for all
he knows,he is doing what SoniaX’s astrologer asked him to do. Or SoniaX
can simply not use the candidate or use some otherprofessional persons
to adjust this count. All in all, ensuring that number of candidates in
race is (4, 9 , 14 , 19 , 24 ,29 , 34 , 39 , … or 64) is not a
difficult task and is trivially easy where CM is also from CongressX 10
Where would this tempering be used? There are 543 Loksabha
Constituencies. Step-One will work well as it is all in a few controlled
factories andthere is no field operation. And Step-2 will work as
dispatching decisions are very centralized. CongressX will notsend
tempered EVMs to 70-80 sure seats. Say tempered EVMs are sent to 460
seats. And out of these 460 seats, step-3works out in 410 cases and
fails in 50 cases. Then CongressX or ally candidate will get all 200
EVMs in those 460seats which will favor CongressX. If each EVM gives him
extra 300 votes, he gets 60,000 extra votes. Enough to makeincrease
final tally by 100-150 seats. Now please note that I am not making
allegation that this indeed happened. Iam saying that this can happen in
future. And this is one way to rig EVMs, there can be 100s more. 11
Compact description of rigging A compact description of tempering is as
follow There are 5 types of tempered EVM BELX made. EVM-k favors
candidate whose roll number is = (nCandidates + k) mod 5 + 1 , k is
between 1 to 5 CECX ensures that all seats have 200 rigged EVMs of same
type and knows which seat has which type. CongressX will know its roll
number 2-3 days before last day for candidates to withdraw. Say
Congress’s roll number is p and it will be between 1 and 5. SoniaX has
to only ensure that, that seat has nCandidates = 5m + (p - 1) - k , m is
any integer. So in each seat, CongressX candidate or some agent of
SoniaX has to put 4 dummy candidates and make 0-4 of the
withdrawaftereveryoneelsehaswithdrawn,sothatnCandidates is 5m + (p - 1) –
k If nCandidates = (5m + (p-1) - k), then the rigged EVMs in that seat
will benefit candidate number = (nCandidates + k) mod 5 + 1
p = the roll number of the CongressX candidate. 12 Why such tempered
EVMs simply cannot be detected? A smart person would do tempering only
if there are over 200 votes and time EVM was left on was above 7
hours.Hence mock polls and testing would never detect this rigging A
smart coder will do tempering only once in life time and never again. So
if the same EVMs are now tested, all ofthem will be free of rigging.
The code inside ROM cannot be read after lockbit is set.. I dont know if
BELX sets lockbits after writing programinto EVM, but it is common
practice in industry to set the lockbit. So if BELX has set lockbit,
there is no way toknow if the code was tempered. 6 4. One can read the
hash of code. But if the manufacturer of the chip was asked to make a
chip that would give aplanted hash than real hash, then hash is not the
hash of the code in EVM but some planted hash. Hence, there is no way to
detect if EVMs used in Apr-2009 were tempered or not. 13 How to put
such code in the microcode of the chip There are two place to put this
tempered code in the chip. One is ROM and other is microcode. If
thistempered code is in ROM, one may find out by opening the machine and
scanning the ROM if lockbits are not set. Ifthe lockbits are set, then
ROM cant be read, only hash can be read. And if chip maker has agreed to
make a chip thatwould give planted hash rather than real hash, then
hash has no value. But if lockbits are not set, the code can be read.
But one can also put this temperingin microcode. How? If the microcode
writer knew the EVM’s code, he canfind out the memory locations in RAM
that stores nCandidates and counts of each candidates. And based
onnCandidates and its own type k, it calculates Favorite_Candidate_No
from the table given in Section-6 (Step-One). Soit can add votes to the
favorite candidate and deduct from the rest. Also say there were one bit
of on-chip flashmemory which gets reset some 8 months after
manufacture. And once that bit is reset, that part of microcode
willnever get executed and so the microcode will become will become
“honest”. This is technologically very muchfeasible. And microcode cant
be read using any equipment. So now there is no technologically feasible
way to know ifsuch a given EVM is tempered or not. The EVM used a made
in Japan chip. So if CongressX had asked that Japanese company to put
tempered code inmicrocode of the chip, which implements the table I
gave, then CongressX, BELX and CECX together could havetempered 100,000
EVMs in a way we will never ever detect. 14 Putting tempered code in EVM
without co-operation of BELX The tempered code can be planted in EVM
without co-operation from BELX chief and without their knowingit. How?
The chip has been imported. EC says that chip is imported from Japan,
but the company name is notdisclosed. And we dont know who owns this
company. For that matter, we dont even know whether SoniaX owns
thiscompany via Mauritius holdings. After all, if a company is making
chip using which one can rig 100,000 booths inIndia, every entity like
MNC, CIA etc would like to invest in that company. Once a chip is made,
no equipment existsto know what exactly has gone in that chip. And
scanning every chip before it goes into EVM is an expensive process.Now
lets say the chip has been tempered as follows Lets call actual program
as A and tempered version of A as B. Say B is already present in chip
when shipped from Japan or wherever If any program say C other than A is
downloaded on the chip, it will execute C If A is downloaded on the
chip, it will execute tempered version of A i.e. B If the chip, and chip
is asked to give hash or verification signature, it would give
signature of whatever program that is downloaded.
this possible, if the chip maker has program A that BELX has written
for EVM. Obtaining a copy of this program needs only one mole in BELX,
one need not compromise the chiefs. IOW, it is possible to put the
temperedprogram in chip right inside the foundry which makes the chip in
Japan. And then no one in BELX will even knowthat chip already has the
tempered version of the program. Can we trust the integrity of some
Japanese or American orany company, whose name even we dont know? Whose
ownership is not disclosed to public? I dont want to put suchtrust on a
Japanese chipmaker, and I would let each citizen of India decide on his
own. 15 Way out I propose camera in booth, a stamping machine with
counter and built in delay of 20 seconds and paperballots. The details
are in http://rahulmehta.com/evm2.pdf
.But that is proposal from just a common man, myself. Thefinal decision
has to be taken by the citizens of India. How can we know if they want
EVMs to continue or not? So my demand is not remove the EVMs in first
step, but to know what commons in India want. I haveproposed a way by
which EVMs can be tempered. But do commons believe that such a way is
feasible for SoniaX, 7 CongressX, CIA or anyone? If commons believe that
my theory is mere hoax, there is no reason to remove EVMs.And if
commons think that my theory is plausible, then EVMs must be removed no
matter what experts in ECIbelieve. So my only demand is to create a
mechanism by which we can know what commons want. 16 Knowing if commons
want EVMs or paper ballot I request the PM to sign a Govt Order whose
draft is as follows, and I request ECI and all concerned citizens tomake
same request to PM :- # Officer Procedure 1 Collector If a citizen
submits an affidavit to the Collector and demands to be put on PM’s
website, theCollector will issue a serial number and put it on PM’s
website for a fee of Rs 20 per page. 2 Talati If a citizen comes with
voter ID, and specifies Yes-No on an affidavit submitted in cluase-1,
theTalati will enter his Yes-No on the PM’s website with voter-ID and
give a printed receipt for Rs 3fee. The Talati will also allow citizen
to change his Yes-No for Rs 3 fee. The fee will be Re 1 forBPL card
holder 3 —– The Yes-No count will not be a binding on PM, CMs,
officers, judges etc The details of the above Govt Order are on http://rahulmehta.com/mrcm_demand_01.htm
Now IMO, we should assume that citizens support EVMs, and those want
paper ballots back have to proveotherwise. How can we anti-EVM pro-paper
prove that over 40 cr citizen voters of India want paper ballots back?
Wecan prove that (or fail and withdraw our demand) if and only if the PM
agrees to issue the GO as above. If the PMissues above GO, and then I
would submit an affidavit to demand cancellation of Section 61A of
People’sRepresentation Act and also demand to install camera in booth,
stamping machine with 20 second delay and counterand paper ballots. If
we fail to convince over 38 cr citizens to register YES on this
affidavit, then there is no need toreplace EVMs. But if citizens do not
wish EVMs to continue, then above Govt Order can be use to prove that.
17 Finally, my proposals I want camera in booth, stamping machine in
booth with 20 second delay and paper ballots. But I want thatAFTER over
40 cr citizen voters have approved it. Now ° if PM agrees to sign the
Govt Order I have proposed, then I will try to convince citizen voters
to register YESon the demand to cancel EVMs. o If over 40 cr citizens
register YES, I will start agitation to remove EVMs o If over 40 cr
citizens register do not register YES, I will drop the demand to remove
EVMs
let citizens register YES-NO on laws passed or affidavits of fellow
citizens, then I willassume that PM is not interested in even knowing
what we citizens want. In such case, I would appeal activists to become
candidates so that number of candidates are more than 64 and EC is
forced to use paper ballots. I request the concerned citizens to ask PM
to sign the above GO so that citizens can register their decision onEVM
issue and also many other issues. 18 Details on http://rahulmehta.com/evm2.pdf
I wanted to keep this article less than 8 pages, and so I had to skip
many details, such as radio enabled EVMsetc. These details are in
article at http://rahulmehta.com/evm2.pdf .
13, 2009: Assembly Election in Arunachal Pradesh. Repoll was ordered in
two polling stations in otherwise peaceful Ziro. Reason - tampering of
electr…
few weeks ago, during my last visit to Bharat, I met Anupam Saraph,
Pune’s Chief Information Commissioner. I was introduced to Anupam via a
chain triggered by Barun Mitra.
was keen to meet him, especially as his profile seemed to be very very
intriguing. Anupam and I met on a rainy evening at ShivSagar
restaurant (the best coffee for its price in Pune, I think!) and it was
only around 10pm that I realised we had been talking for 3 hours!
Anupam told me that day was unbelievable…So I asked him to email me
more information. Within two days, Anupam sent me a bunch of links – all
pointing to something that had gone seriously wrong with either EVMs,
data upload by the Election Commission – or both (and possibly something
else)
hurriedly glanced through some of the links but decided to write about
it on the blog only after I had gone through them in some detail.
am glad I did. Below is a story about EVMS and some unanswered
questions…in the words of Anupam and Prof M Nalapat. Do read and think
about it. Reading about what they uncovered made me feel very uneasy…
am now pretty sure that there is something that has gone wrong which we
do not know about (yet). Most of you will not be surprised that
Anupam was hounded when he went public with his fears…and no mainstream
newspaper would touch their report or findings (sole exception: Mid-Day
in Mumbai).
view of this report, the concern raised by Vidhya on one of my previous
posts – ought to be taken seriously (Like most other readers, I too was
guilty of dismissing the concerns as mere conjecture and a bit of “sour
grapes”. I may have been very wrong). Read on:
were held in 5 phases across India. The last phase of polling was
completed on the 13th of May 2009. The counting of votes was to begin on
the 16th of May 2009.
data of various candidates could be obtained from the Election
Commission of India’s website. In order to track the elections and
upload candidate and constituency information onto this wiki, we
accessed this website and regularly downloaded the CandidateAC file from
there. This spreadsheet had various columns containing information of
all candidates including their political affiliations, age, address etc.
There was also a column for “votes polled” and some “coding” called
“DECODE(FINALISED,’YES’,’FINALISED’,)â€.
virtue of the Election Rules no votes polled data/exit poll was to be
available before the 16th of May 2009, least of all on the Election
Commission of India Website.
excel spreadsheets on candidate information for all India downloaded
from the ECI website between the 6th and 15th of May had “coded”
Candidate Names, Party Names and votes polled. Despite repeated queries
the ECI has not clarified the meaning of this data. This has resulted in
widespread speculation and raised serious questions about the the
management and integrity of the democratic process.
What was the coded data in the “votes polled” column in the versions
of the spreadsheet downloaded between the 6th and 11th of May?
If EVM’s were secure with DEO/district collectors, and elections
were not even held in many constituencies, how was the data for 8023
candidates or all but 47 of the 8071 candidates available to the ECI on
files downloaded between these dates?
If data in these files was test/dummy data, how does it match the
winners in 108 constituencies or 106 according to another analysis?
If EVM’s were secure with DEO/district collectors, and elections
were not even held in many constituencies, how was the data for 8023
candidates or all but 47 of the 8071 candidates available to the ECI on
files downloaded between these dates?
the 6th of May Anupam and Prof Nalapat asked the ECI to clarify whether
the spreadsheet that had “votes polled” for each candidate contained
test data, actual votes polled or was it a wrong file?
file between the 6th and 15th is? Why is the Final votes polled data
not uploaded till date at this location? When do you plan to upload it?”
is hardly reassuring and raises all kinds of questions. The most
important – however outrageous it may sound – being: “Were the results
of some Lok Sabha constituencies decided even before polling?”
Anupam and Prof Nalapat noted in their article in Covert, there are not
too many ways in which the information about “votes polled” in the
spreadsheet on the ECI website could have changed BEFORE the results
were actually announced.
The first possibility is serious, as it implies that the databases
hosted by the ECI are not secure and can be compromised. The second is a
violation of the ECI’s rule that no counting was to begin till 16
May. It also constitutes a breach of security, as the EVMs were supposed
to be in safe custody in a strong room of the DEO [district election
officer]. The third would imply that the election results were being
decided by whoever had access to the private database. If the results
were to be read only from the EVMs, why was a coded spreadsheet
prepared? How could this spreadsheet have the data on “votes
polled�
Sceptics might say that the coded data containing information on the
votes polled was test or dummy data. If so, why was this test or dummy
data prepared? What was being tested? How was this test data generated?
What were the results of the tests? Why was the data generated after the
first three phases of polling, but before the fourth and fifth phases?
Why was the data removed when there was no intention of loading real
data into the file? Why was the dummy data coded? How do 108 winning
candidates in the dummy data match the eventual winners?
The various versions of the files downloaded from ECI website by
Nalapat-Saraph on 6th, 7th and 11th May and the data were merged
together along with the final results found on ECI site on June 2nd…
2. Candidates in every constituency were ranked as 1, 2 and 3 on the
basis of the votes seen in ECI excel sheets on 6th, 7th and 11th May.
CPM leaders (Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury), accompanied by
member secretariat V Srinivasa Rao and a technical expert Prabir
Purkayastha, told the commission and technical experts present at the
meeting that both hardware and software should be in public domain.
Further, it said the chips manufactured by ECIL, BEL should be allowed
for yearly random third-party inspections either by NIC or IITs.
…They said these steps were necessary to ‘restore the ‘confidence’
in EVMs as there have been “reporting of errors in some machines and
discrepancies in results”.
If the the data in these files was test/dummy data, what was it
testing? Why was this test taking place during the polling period?
Comments
Running a campaign against EVMs. Pls see http://rahulmehta.com/evm.pdf
@ Anon: Yes, that would be an interesting analysis…I believe the files are all on the wikia link cited in Part I.
B Shantanu |
Extract from an email by Dr Anupam Saraph:
…nothing has come out of the EC visit, they have not clarified anything.
The
least parties and citizens should do is insit on a receipt in the
Maharashtra elections and if refused note the request in the register
for complaints at each polling booth.
There should be an
international movement for democratic reforms and standards- that should
include the various reform issues. Many countries face similar
problems. Connect the democratic reformers across the world.
Subramanian Swamy convenes conference on Feb 13 on EVMs
Chennai | Wednesday, Jan 6 2010 IST
Janata
Party President Subramanian Swamy has convened an International
Conference here on February 13 on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in
the light of reports of their tamperability.
In a statement here, Dr
Swamy said about 35 experts from India, Germany and the US would be
attending the conference to review the international experience with
EVMs in the light of reports from several countries about the
tamperability and the lack of transparency in polling of votes.
The
German Supreme Court had recently banned the use of EVMs in elections
based on these reports, he said, adding the Delhi High Court would take
up for hearing his Public Interest Litigation on EVMs on February 17.
The
Janata Party leader said Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla has
been ”telling a blatant lie to the media that no one has yet been able
to demonstrate the tamperability of EVMs.”
http://news. webindia123. com/news/ Articles/ India/20100106/ 1419942.html
R. Viswanathan | January 8, 2010
‘EVMs illegally being used for a decade’-Ajay Jagga, High Court Lawyer
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.
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/
Figure 18
Title:
ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE (EVM)
Abstract:
The
ballot unit (BU) which contains sixteen candidate buttons and indicator
lamps for each candidate button is interconnected to control unit (CU)
through a five-meter-length twenty-five core flat jacketed cable. The
control unit (CU), initially set for a particular number of contesting
candidates, activates the ballot unit (BU). The voting continues until
all the voters cast their votes. On completion of voting, operating the
close button (28) closes the control unit (CU), machine power switched
off, and control unit (CU) is packed into carrying case and taken into
the counting centers for the counting of votes. The result of the
election is displayed on the display screen (12) upon pressing of a
result button (29, 30) in the control unit (CU). The recorded votes cast
against each candidate are displayed sequentially in the display screen
(12) with a buzzer beep sound. The voting data is retained in the
memory even if power is switched off. The machine can be used for
conducting simultaneous elections using the auxiliary control unit (ACU)
along with the main control unit (CU). The entire machine is operated
by a 7.5V battery and allows the selection of a maximum of sixty-four
contesting candidates. Compartments are provided in the machine
constructed according to the invention with interlocking and thread
sealing features, the machine thus being tamper proof, error free and
easy to operate. The voting data recorded once are retained in the
memory until it is erased by operating a clear button (31). The entire
machine is constructed in injection moulded plastic for mass manufacture
and fabricated of light weight. The machine is convenient to use and
portable.
Inventors:
Rajagopalan, Jagannathan (353 11th Cross, 14th Main J.P. Nagar, II Phas, Bangalore 8 Karnataka, 560 07, IN)
Publication Date:
October 24, 2002
Filing Date:
March 13, 2002
Export Citation:
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Assignee:
BHARAT ELECTRONICS LIMITED (At Trade Center, 116/2 Race Course Roa, Bangalore 1 Karnataka, 560 00, IN)
Rajagopalan, Jagannathan (353 11th Cross, 14th Main J.P. Nagar, II Phas, Bangalore 8 Karnataka, 560 07, IN)
International Classes:
G07C13/00
Attorney, Agent or Firm:
Alamelu, Vaidyanathan (451 2nd Cross, 3rd Block 3rd Stage, Basaveshwaranaga, Bangalore 9 Karnataka, 560 07, IN)
Claims:
CLAIMS
1.
An
Apparatus for conducting elections for Parliament, State Assembly,
Municipal and other local bodies on the majority voting scheme as per
constitution of India on secret ballot and one voteronevote principle
comprising. a) A control unit having an OTP Micro controller (One time
programmable) to collect, record and store, count and display, a non
volatile data memory being interfaced serially to the Microcontroller,
the said memory stores the data during voting process, the various
control signals are generated through the shift register, a power
monitoring circuit to generate the reset to the Microcontroller, a seven
segment drivedecoder to generate display data, a ballot unit interface
along with the necessary connector, all being housed in a housing, the
top portion of the control unit being divided in to four sections i. e.,
(i) A display section consisting of two lamps ON to indicate that the
machine is ready for use and BUSY to indicate that the voter can record
his vote, and the display panelsone of 2 digits and the other of four
digits to display the no of candidates, total number of votes polled,
individual votes for each candidate and the errors, if any, (ii)
Candidate set section divided into two parts, one having”Candidate Set
Button”to set the number of contesting candidates, the other part for
carrying the power pack, two doors, one to cover the candidate set
button individually and the other which covers the entire section, (iii)
Result section divided into two parts, one having the close button to
close the polling operations, the other part divided into three sub
sections wherein result I and Result II buttons and clear buttons are
housed, the result buttons are used to display the results and clear
button is used to clear the previous voting records, two separate doors,
one to lock the result button sub sections and another to cover the
entire section and (iv) Ballot section wherein”ballot button”to permit
the voter to cast a vote and total buttons to show the total number of
votes polled are housed, and (b) a ballot unit having a base which
encloses a printed circuit board and a cover thereof, a connector box
for inter connecting cables to the control unit, sixteen push button
voting switches (one switch for each contesting candidates), an
indicator lamp which glows when the voter is permitted to vote, a slide
switch to indicate the ballot unit number.
2.
Apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein multilevel thread sealing provision is made to protect against any possible tampering.
3.
Apparatus
as claimed in claim 1, wherein the control unit and ballot unit are
made by injection moulded plastic parts, fastenerless heat sealing
assembly technique, which provides consistent quality for mass
production at economical cost.
4.
Apparatus as claimed in
claim 1, wherein said base comprises of rectangular moulded base
providing locating latches, guides for inserting PCB, self tapping
bosses to fix PCB, heat sealing pipes to seal door II & III, cutout
for accommodating rear door and pips with depression for fixing serial
number plate.
5.
Apparatus as claimed in claim 1, including
cover, rectangular moulded part contains compartments for ballot,
total, close, result I, result II, cand. set and clear buttons, a cavity
to accommodate doors II, door III & door IV, a compartment for
power pack, windows for ON, Serial number, Votes and busy indication,
protrusion to hold the rear door, counter bore to fix cover to base at
the four locations with selftapping screws.
6.
Apparatus as
claimed in claim 1, wherein said door I is a moulded cover including
cutouts to reach result keys form cover, latches to open from inside,
lugs for thread sealing to the cover.
7.
Apparatus as
claimed in claim 1, wherein said door II is a cover hinged to base and
enclosing the close, results and clear button, Slots for latching to
base, and slant surface with hole to thread seal to the base.
8.
Apparatus
as claimed in claim 1 including door III comprising moulded panel
hinged to base enclosing cand. set switch, power pack compartments, slot
for latching to base, and slant surface with hole to thread seal to the
base.
9.
Apparatus as claimed in claim 1 including door IV,
comprising moulded cover hinged to the main cover and enclosing cand.
set swich and lugs for thread sealing to the cover.
10.
Apparatus
as claimed in claim 1, wherein a panel enclosing the out going
connector compartment, rotates and opens out for interconnection, latch
and thread sealing lugs on both sides. 1I.
11.
Apparatus as claimed in claim 1, including spacers for sandwich mounting of PCB between base and cover.
12.
Apparatus
as claimed in claim 1, including the construction of recessed switch
knob to ensure deliberate pressing by voter to record the votes.
13.
Apparatus
as claimed in claim 1, wherein said base is a rectangular moulded panel
with self tapping holes to fix PCB, provision for fixing stand,
compartment for connector interconnecting and sealing pipes to fix
serial number plate.
14.
Apparatus as claimed in claim 1,
wherein said base is a rectangular moulded panel with self tapping holes
to fix PCB, provision for fixing stand, Compartment for connector
interconnecting and sealing pipes to fix serial number plate.
15.
Apparatus
as claimed in claim 1 including cover, rectangular moulded panel with
oblong cutouts to operate switch knob to register the vote, stepped slot
to fit cover ballot sheet, slots to hold right and left flops at
extreme corners and pips for fixing hinges at the bottom side.
16.
Apparatus
as claimed in claim 1 including PCB cover, rectangular panel enclosing
the PCB and provided ing holes for inserting sixteen sets of switch and
close knobs.
17.
Apparatus as claimed in claim 1, including
cover ballot sheet, transparent cover for inserting paper containing
name, serial number and election symbol of contesting candidates, fixed
to cover with round latch for easy rotation.
18.
Apparatus as
claimed in claim 1, including switch knob and closing knob constructed
in that form to operate one at a time in the oblong opening, the
construction of movement of one knob brings other knob into position.
19.
Apparatus
as claimed in claim 1, including flap right and left enclosing latch of
main cover and provided with thread sealing slots to cover and base to
protect against possible tampering by the voters.
20.
Apparatus
as claimed in claim 1, including door connector box, moulded cover
enclosing rear compartment to protect cascading connector and cable.
21.
Apparatus
as defined in claim 1, including the signal integrity established
between Microcontroller, Data memory and ballot unit so that these
three will work in unified manner.
22.
Apparatus as claimed
in claim 1, including the construction of Battery pack in moulded case
with polarised plug, which is unique and fool proof that different
battery cannot be used along with Low battery indication means to
facilitate replacement of battery at any stage of polling process and
the process can be continued without any loss of voting data.
23.
Apparatus
as claimed in claim 1, including the powering scheme of ballot units
from the control unit, which gives a unique nature of signal integrity
(Scanning process) for the machine, high current drivers used to drive
the ballot unit to cater to the twentymeter distance between the polling
officer and voting compartment and the slide switch setting in ballot
unit makes it unique and cannot be interchanged during poll.
24.
Apparatus
as claimed in claim 1, including the method MicroController (OTP) used
to store the firmware, which cannot be changed or modified once fused,
the non volatile data memory (EEPROM) is tightly coupled to the
microcontroller through unique protocol to store the data during the
voting process, and every time the microcontroller checks the check sum
of the data memory (EEPROM) to establish link to proceed with the voting
process, in case of mismatch the machine displays Er message, which
eliminates the tampering the micro controller of EEPROM by replacement
of external components.
25.
Apparatus as claimed in claim 1,
including the scheme of data memory written in encrypted form and has
been split into two banks and the ballot counting is stored in both
banks, at every instance of a change in the data memory, the data is
stored in two different ways and both are verified to check the
correctness of the operation and the data can be decrypted only by the
firmware in the micro controller, hence it is not possible to corrupt
firmware of data by any known means.
26.
Apparatus as claimed
defined in claim 1, including the implementation of effective
redundancy scheme with two independent nonvolatile memory devices
(EEPROM) to store the data, effectively four banks are used to store
data and at every operation all the four banks are checked and atleast
two banks should contain the correct data as per the firmware’s
expectations and if data are not found in atleast any of the two banks
then a fatal error is declared and the whole unit is unusable at this
state.
27.
Apparatus as defined in claim 1, including the
printing of stored data memory through a printer interface module at any
number of times in the life of the machine unless deliberately erased
by operating the clear button. This emulates the manual ballot paper
method as per the constitutional requirements.
28.
Apparatus
as defined in claim 1, including the unidirectional operational sequence
of Machine in which a) Contesting candidate setting cannot be changed
unless the result is seen once, b) Votes cannot be cast on the machine
unless it is in the cleared condition (Previous voting data erased), c)
Votes cannot be added to the machine once it is closed (by pressing the
close button), d) Result cannot be seen unless the machine is closed,
e) The machine cannot be cleared unless the result is seen at least once
and the clearing operation requires the ballot unit inter connection,
which eliminates accidental erasing.
29.
Apparatus as defined
in claim 1 including the regulation of voting in which the machine
accepts maximum of 5 votes per minute and this feature discourages
rigging and both capturing.
Description:
This Invention relates to
an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) PREAMBLE The prior art is known as
manual ballot paper voting method in which every voter is provided with a
ballot paper containing serial number, names of the contesting
candidates, their election symbol and space to record votes. The
recording of vote is done by putting’X mark using rubber stamp in the
space provided against the candidate in the ballot paper. After
recording vote, the voters deposit the ballot paper in a sealed metallic
box (Ballot box). On completion of voting, the ballot papers are taken
to the counting centers. The seals of ballot box is opened in the
presence of candidates/agents and the votes are counted manually by
identifying’X’stamp mark against the candidate. The candidate who
secured highest number of votes is declared winner as per the
constitution of India.
The shortcomings of the prior art (manual ballot paper voting method) are 1. Involves printing of huge volume of ballot paper.
2. Storage and distribution of ballot paper requires large manpower and security.
3. Accounting and issue of ballot paper is a tedious work and error prone.
4. Manual counting of votes requires large manpower, time and prone to human error.
5. Re-counting is time consuming and costly.
6. Segregation of invalid votes is cumbersome and leads to disputes lfights, among candidates.
7. Manual voting is prone to mal-practices, booth capturing-not tamper proof.
Due
to the ever increasing population and frequency of elections, there is a
definite need to bring out improvement over manual ballot paper voting
method, which is 1. Fool proof, trouble free and cost effective.
2. To conduct election, paper less and count the votes automatically, so that the result can be declared immediately.
3. To eliminate the invalid votes so that the dispute of segregation of invalid votes eliminated.
4.
Reduce the overall election expenditure, to the government (The
election expenditure is increasing due to the frequent elections).
5.
Reduce drastically the volume of Ballot paper printing from the current
requirement of more then 70 million papers for manual voting for one
general election (Papers less system) The Electronic Voting Machine
(EVM) of the present invention is provided with all the \ above needed
improvements over the manual ballot paper voting method which are
explained in the succeeding paragraphs.
Summary of the invention.
The
present invention relates to an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM)
consisting of Control Unit (CU) and Ballot Unit (BU) for conduct of
elections in place of conventional manual ballot paper voting method.
The invention totally replaces the existing manual
method by the
use of apparatus constructed in accordance to the invention and
operational requirements as per the constitution of India for fool
proof, error free and cost saving way to conduct elections for electing
members of state assembly, parliament and other municipal bodies based
on majority voting scheme. The apparatus of the invention is convenient,
simple to operate and portable. Another important feature of this
machine is the facia construction of the control unit and ballot unit,
which is as per the constitutional requirement of India. Use of this
machine eliminates invalid voters, cumbersome procedure and disputes in
segregation of invalid votes as in manual ballot voting scheme. By the
use of EVM, the labour can be minimized at poling centers as well as
counting centers. The feature of the machine are illustrated below.
The
Electronic voting machine of the present invention consists of two
units, i. e. a balloting unit which the voter operates to exercise
his/her franchise and a control unit which controls the polling process.
It is operated by the Presiding Officer or the First Polling Officer.
The
Control Unit (CU) constructed in accordance with a invention is built
around a Micro - Controller [One time Programmable (OTIR)]. The control
unit is divided into four sections, i. e. a. display section, b.
candidate set section, c. result section and d. ballot section. The said
sections, are provided with seven control buttons namely cand. set,
ballot, close, result I, result B, total and clear buttons. Light
emitting diode (LED) indicates ON and BUSY condition of the machine. Six
digits of seven segment LED is
provided for the display of
result and error messages. Operation of cand. set switch sets the number
of contesting candidate in control unit. Ballot switch operation
energizes the ballot unit, receives and records one vote in control
unit. Close button operation ends the voting process, The machine
records the total number of votes polled and votes against each
contesting candidate during the polling. On the operation of Result
switch, the vote recorded against every contesting candidate is
displayed sequentially. Clear operation erases all previous voting data
stored in the machine. Print of recorded voting data is obtained through
a printer interface unit.
The Ballot Unit (BU) constructed in
accordance with the invention has sixteen (16) push button voting
switches and indicator lamps. The voting buttons are provided in a
recessed oblong cutout in the cover so that the buttons are deliberately
pressed by the voters for recording of votes and not by accidental
pressing. The top cover has a transparent cover for inserting ballot
paper to display the names of contesting candidates, their serial number
and election symbol. This cover can be sealed inside the panel by
thread seal to protect the ballot paper against any tampering. Green LED
lamp is provided for indicating the energized condition of the machine
to the Voter. Five meter flat cable provides interconnection to the
control unit to receive the signal. Slide Switch is used to indicate the
ballot unit number, which is set depending on the number of contesting
candidates. The rear compartment receives the interconnecting cable of
the cascading ballot unit when the machine is used for more than sixteen
contesting candidates.
The machine is constructed using
injection moulded plastic parts, which provides consistent quality, high
volume output for mass production. Fastnerless assembly of plastic
components used in the construction of machine to achieve consistent
quality and cost effective product. The voting machine designed with
injection moulded carrying cases for movement/transportation to any
location for usage. The machine constructed to operate with 7.5V battery
power source. It can be deployed in places where no electrical power is
available. Machine construction with multilevel interlocking
panels/section makes it fool proof, easy to use by common man.
Other
features and advantages of the machine will be apparent from the
following description, the accompanying drawings and the appended
claims.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS: Fig. 1 shows the
perspective view of control unit to control the polling process, which
is constructed in accordance with the invention.
Fig. 2 is a fragmentary perspective view showing hinging arrangement of Door I & Door II to the Base of the control unit.
Fig. 3 is a fragmentary perspective view of showing the rear door of the control unit.
Fig 4 is a fragmentary perspective view of the control unit base showing the assembly of Printed Circuit Board (PCB).
Fig
5 is a perspective view of the control unit in fully assembled
conditions showing four sections, of the control unit namely A) Display
section B) candidate section, C) Result section D). Ballot section.
Fig 6 is an exploded view of control unit showing parts constructed in accordance with the invention.
Fig 7 shows view of switch knob and closing knob of Ballot Unit constructed in accordance with the invention.
Fig 8 is a fragmentary perspective view illustrating the arrangements of hinge, flap right, cover LED red.
Fig. 9 is a perspective view of Ballot unit, which is constructed in accordance with the invention.
Fig. 10 is a perspective view of internal construction of ballot unit.
Fig.
ll is a fragmentary perspective view illustrating door connector box
with cable clamp, lockingpin with flaps and rubber stand Fig. 12 is an
exploded view of balloting unit constructed in accordance with the
invention.
Fig. 13. is a diagram of Auxiliary Control Unit (ACU) constructed in accordance with the invention.
Fig. 14 is a schematic block diagram of Control Unit constructed in accordance with the invention.
Fig. 15 is a schematic block diagram of Ballot Unit constructed in accordance with the invention.
Fig. 16 is the connectivity scheme EVM for single poll mode.
Fig. 17 is the connectivity scheme of EVM for dual poll mode.
Fig. 18 is the state transition diagram of Electronic Voting Machine constructed in accordance with the invention.
DESCRIPTION
OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT : Referring the drawing of the Control Unit
illustrated in Fig. l includes an aesthetically designed plastic molded
base 2 which enclosed Printed Circuit Board 35 (PCB) shown in Fig. 4
and cover 1 consists of four sections Display Section, Candidate
Section, Result Section and Ballot Section as shown in fig. 5. a)
Display Section consists of two lamps ON, Busy, and two display panels,
one of 2 digits and other of 4 digits. (Fig. 5) b) The Candidate Section
(fig. 5) has a cover, which opens from, left to right. On opening its
cover by pressing the latch on the left-hand side, two compartments are
seen. The left compartment is for the battery 34 rated 7.5V, 2Ah. In the
right compartment, a Candid button is located. The Candidate Set
Section is closed and sealed by Door I as shown in (fig. 1). c) The
cover of the Result Section has an elliptical aperture on the left hand
side through which the close button is seen. The left portion of the
Result Section
houses a black close button. The right portion
contains an inner compartment with its own door. The door of the inner
compartment has two elliptical apertures through which buttons marked
Resuft I and Resuft H is seen. The inner door can be opened by inserting
the thumb and a finger through the two apertures above the Result I and
Result II’buttons’and then pressing the inner latches simultaneously
slightly inwards. On opening the door of the inner compartment by
inserting forefinger and thumb through the holes which are marked Result
I and Result H and pressing the latches and pulling the cover up, there
are two frames around the two apertures for fixing green paper seals.
The inner compartment has three sub-sections with two yellow buttons
marked Result I and Result Il and a white Aearbutton. d) In the ballot
section, there are two buttons-a Grey Total button 32 (fig. 6) and a
large blue ballot button as indicated in fig. 5.
The cover 1
(fig. 5) defines four sections namely a. Display section, b. Candidate
section, c. Result section and d. Ballot Section.
The base 2
(fig. 6) has provision to mount printed circuit board 35 (PCB) using
self tapping screws 37. It has also a compartment with rear door 3 (fig.
6) This rear door is hinged in the bottom and opens swinging downwards,
when the latch in the middle is pressed downwards. This has a provision
for thread sealing. The rear door when opened will reveal a socket on
the left hand side for plugging the interconnecting cable from the
ballot unit and a toggle switch 36 in the middle for switching the EVM ON or OFF (Fig. 3).
The
door I 4 (fig. 5) is a protection cover for result section. Door I when
opened reveal knob (Result I) 29; Knob (Result II)30 ; and knob (clear)
31 (fig. 6) & has provision for thread sealing. The insert 16 (Fig.
5) is used for the thread sealing of the result section.
Two elliptical cutouts are provided in the door 4 to access Result I, Result II and Clear - buttons.
The
door II referred by reference numeral S (fig. 5) is the top cover of
the result section having an elliptical cutout for the knob (close) 28
{fig. 6). The elliptical cutout is sealed by plate-paper seal 26 (fig.
5) and green paper seal. The door in indicated by reference numeral 6
(fig. 5) is a protection cover for candidate set section with provision
for thread sealing. The door in when opened will reveal battery
compartment and candidate compartment. The candidate set compartment is
accessed by opening door IV (cand. set) 7 (fig. 5) by removing thread
sealing. The knob (cand. set) 27 (fig. 6) can then be operated.
The hinge 8 (fig. 4) shows the hinging action of the door It 5 & door in 6 with the cover.
The
plexy glass display 12 (fig. 6) is a red acrylic sheet to view the
digits of 7-segment display mounted on the Printed Circuit Board (PCB).
There are 2 digits for serial number and 4 digits for number of votes.
There are seven knob bases 11 (fig. 6) used for the seven different
knobs such as knob 27 (cand. set). Knob 28 (close), knob 29 (result I),
knob 30 (result 1I), knob 31 (clear), knob 32 (total) and knob 13
(Ballot) (Fig. 6). The
knob (ballot) 13 (fig. 6) is a dark blue colour plastic button to register vote. Cover 38 is provided for the green LED.
The
bush short 14 (fig. 6) and bush long 15 (fig. 6) are assembled after
mounting the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) on to the base of the control
unit. The pin (door IV) 22 and hinge (door IV) 23 (Fig. 5) are required
to assemble door IV onto the cover of the control unit. At first hinge
and door IV are assembled by using pin (door IV) and then the door IV
assembly is fixed to the cover by heat sealing as shown in fig. 6.
The
washer 24 (fig. 6) are used along with five knobs namely knob (cand.
set). Knob (close), knob (result I), knob (result II) and knob (clear)
It gives cushioning effect to the knobs. It is made out of foam. The
washer 25 (fig. 6) are used to fix display Printed Circuit Board (PCB)
rigidly on to the base of the control unit. After mounting the display
board on the base, washer is placed and then fixed by screws. Rubber cap
33 (Fig. 6) is fixed to cover screw head.
Referring to the
drawings, the ballot unit illustrated in fig. 10 includes a rectangular
plastic moulded base 39, which encloses PCB cover & PCB (not shown).
It also encloses door connector box 64 (fig. 11) for interconnecting
cable. The base has got a rubber stand 40 as shown in fig. 7. The cover
42 (fig. 10) defines cover ballot sheet 62 for inserting the ballot
paper of the sixteen contestants, cover (ready Light Emitting Diode
(LED) 44 (fig. 10) & Light Emitting Diode (LED) cover 45 (fig. 10).
It protects ballot paper. The cover 42 & base 39 of the ballot unit
are assembled with two numbers of
plastic hinges 46 (fig. 
and
the cover ballot sheet is assembled with locking pins 47 and 48 (fig.
11). The hinges are assembled to the base and cover by heat sealing
process.
The Printed Circuit Board (PCB) cover 49 (fig. 12) is a
rectangular plastic moulded part, dark Grey in colour having provision
for sixteen closing knobs 50 (fig. 7), sixteen switch knobs 51 (fig. 7).
This protects Printed Circuit Board (PCB) 63 (Fig. 12) from tampering.
It
is fixed to the base by screws. The closing knob 50 (fig. 7) used for
blocking the switch knob 51. In order to access the switch knob 51 one
has to open the closing knob.
This is used during polling depending on the number of contestants in fray.
Locking pin 52 (fig. 12) used for closing & opening the cover and base of the ballot unit.
Flap
right 53 (fig. 11) and flap left 54 (fig. 11) are used for covering
locking pin 52 after latching the cover to base. Bracket 55 (fig. 10)
used for clamping the interconnecting cable at two places after crimping
the 25 core flat cable to the 25-pin dip header, which is soldered to
the Printed Circuit Board (PCB). Support LED 56 (fig. 12) is a plastic
moulded part in which ready LED assembly is mounted in order to avoid
damage during operation and transportation of the Ballot Unit.
Rubber Stand 40 (Fig. 7) supports the ballot unit while placing on table during operation.
It is a plastic moulded part having provision for fixing serrated rubber stand 41 (fig. 7).
Rubber
foot 57 (Fig 11) prevents sliding of the ballot unit from the table
while the unit is in operation. Clamp cable 58 (fig. 11) clamps the
interconnecting cable of the cascading
Ballot unit (incase of
more than sixteen contesting candidates), 25 contact sub connector)
inside the connector box compartment of the ballot unit.
Interconnecting
cable 59 (Fig. 9) is a sheathed 25 core flat cable, one end of which is
permanently attached to the Ballot unit. The other end is with 25
contact D-sub connector with hood for connecting it to the control unit.
Ready lamp 60 (Fig. 9) is on the top left side of the Ballot unit. This
lamp glow when the presiding officer presses the’Ballot button3 on the
control unit enable the voter to record his vote. It goes off when the
voter has recorded his vote.
Slide switch 61 window (Fig 10) is
on the top right side of the Ballot unit. The slide switch inside the
Ballot unit is used to set the Ballot Unit for 1-16, 17-32, 33-48 or
48-64 positions in cascading configurations. Sixteen candidates button
51 (Fig. 7) provide convenient access for the voter to record his/her
vote by pressing the candidate’s button against the name and symbol of
the candidate of his 1 her choice. When the button is pressed the lamp
on the left side of that button glows and voters choice is recorded.
Provision
for insertion of ballot paper 43 (fig. 12) is provided on the top cover
of ballot unit. The ballot paper contains serial number, names and
symbols of the contesting candidates. A transparent polycarbonate sheet
62 covers the ballot sheet 43 (Fig. 12) to protect the said ballot
paper.
Referring to the diagram 13, Auxiliary control unit is
constructed by means of cover 65, base 66, Printed Circuit Board (PCB)
67, inter-connecting cable 68 to connect to the main
control
unit. The PCB is held by self-tapping screws 69, cover and base is held
by screws 70, ballot knob 71 is inserted into the packet in the cover
and knob base 72 is fitted from inside. Partition box 73 is used to
control light dispersion on indicator. Rear door 74 provides access to
connect Ballot Unit and Cable Clamp 75 is used to Clamp the Cable.
Referring
to the diagram 14 which shows the block level details of hardware
construction of control unit built around a Micro-controller (One Time
Programmable). The non- volatile data memory is interfaced serially to
the Micro controller. All the required control signals are generated
through the shift register. In order to have an orderly power up and
power down sequence, power monitoring circuit (DS1231) is used. To
protect EEPROMs during power up and power down, the low voltage detector
in the power monitor is used. Additionally, the reset signal also
inhibits the write operation under low voltage condition. A
seven-segment drive-decoder is used to generate display data. In order
to reduce the hardware complexity, these displays are driven in a
multiplexed mode using an 8-digit, high current display driver.
Minimum
numbers of components have been used to construct the machine to keep
cost and power consumption at optimum. Industrial grade and surface
mount technology have been used to achieve high reliability. The total
hardware has been populated in only three PCBs with minimum number of
interconnections to provide high field reliability and serviceability.
Signal integrity is established between Micro-controller, Data memory
and
ballot unit so that these three will work in unified manner. Without connecting the ballot unit the voting is not possible.
The
battery is packaged in moulded case with polarized plug, which is
unique and fool proof that different battery can not be used. Low
battery indication is provided in the machine to facilitate replacement
of battery at any stage of polling process and the process can be
continued. The ballot units are powered from the control unit, which
gives a unique nature of signal integrity (Scanning process) for the
machine. High current drivers are used to drive the ballot unit to cater
to the twenty-meter distance between the polling officer and voting
compartment. The slide switch setting in ballot unit makes it unique and
cannot be interchanged during poll.
Micro-controller (One Time
Programmable) is used to store the firmware, which cannot be changed or
modified once fused. The non-volatile data memory (EEPROM) is tightly
coupled to the micro-controller through unique protocol to store the
data during the voting process. Every time the micro-controller checks
the check sum of the data memory (EEPROM) to confirm data integrity,
otherwise the machine displays Er, which eliminates the tampering the
micro-controller or EEPROM by replacement of external components.
The
data memory is written in encrypted form and has been split into two
banks and the ballot counting is stored in both banks. 2 Nos. are used
for redundancy and hence voting data is stored at 4 locations. At every
instance of a change in the data memory, the data
stored in 4
locations are verified to check the correctness of the operation. The
data can be decrypted only by the firmware in the micro-controller.
Hence it is not possible to corrupt the firmware or data by any known
means.
To have effective redundancy, two independent non-volatile
memory devices (EEPROM) are used. Effectively four banks are used to
store data and at every operation all the four banks are checked and
at-least two banks should contain the correct data as per the firmware’s
expectations. If data are not found in at-least any of the two banks
then a fatal error is declared and the whole unit is unusable at this
state.
The stored data can be read and printed through a printer
interface module at any number of times in the life of the machine
unless deliberately erased by operating the clear button. This emulates
the manual ballot paper method as per the constitutional requirements.
Figure 15 shows switch and LED matrix interfaced to Control unit.
Figure 16 shows the connectivity details of electronic voting machine for single poll mode.
Figure
17 shows the connectivity details of electronic voting machine for dual
poll mode where in the EVM is deployed for parliament and assembly
elections simultaneously.
Figure 18 shows the state transition
diagram of voting process. It also gives the different state of the
machine and change over from one state to other. The state transition
has
been done to prevent mal-practices and to strictly follow the procedure of voting as per the constitutional requirements.
OPERATION
: Before the Electronic Voting Machine is sent to the Polling Stations,
the Ballot Unit has to be prepared by the Officer-in-charge as given
below: a) Inserting the Ballot paper, b) Masking the Candidate’s
buttons, which are not required to be used, c) Setting the Slide Switch
at the appropriate position, i. e. 1,2,3, or 4 as the case may be
according to the number of such units which are to be used depending
upon the number of candidates and the sequence in which, they are to be
used and d) Sealing the unit.
After taldng out the Ballot Unit
from the carrying case, the top cover of the unit may be opened
carefully by pressing simultaneously, towards the right, the latches at
the top and bottom on the right edge of the unit (fig. 11), and swinging
the cover up. (fig. 13).
OPENING OF BALLOT PAPER SCREEN Open the
Ballot Paper Screen, which is a transparent acrylic sheet, hinged to
the top cover on the extreme left side. The release latches of the
screen are inside the top cover (Fig. 9). By pressing the latches
simultaneously, first slightly towards right and then pushing them
downwards, the Ballot Paper Screen will become free for opening on the
upper side of the said top cover. While opening the screen care should be taken to ensure that it is not damaged.
FIXING
OF BALLOT PAPER Place the Ballot Paper in the space provided for the
purpose on the upper side of the top cover. Align the Ballot paper
properly so that each candidate’s name and his symbol are in line with
the corresponding Candidate’s lamp and button. After ensuring this
alignment, close and press fit the Ballot Paper Screen to secure the
Ballot Paper firmly underneath that screen.
After the Ballot
Paper has been firmly fixed and the Ballot Paper Screen has been pressed
fit on the upper side of the Top Cover, the screen is to be sealed on
the inner side of the Top Cover. This is to be done by passing the
thread through the two holes on the screen specially provided for the
purpose and by putting the thread seal on the prescribed address tag
showing the particulars of the election with the seal of the Returning
Officer.
MASKING OF CANDIDATES’BUTTONS If the number of
Candidates on the ballot paper is less than 16, the white masking tabs
should be moved onto the Candidates’buttons not required to be used.
SETTING
OF SLIDE SWITCH Inside the Ballot Unit on the top right side, there is a
Slide Switch, which has four positions 1, 2,3 and 4. If only one Ballot
Unit is to be used, set this Switch to the position marked ‘1′. If two
ballot Units are to be used, set this Switch to the position marked ‘1′
in the Ballot Unit in which the names of the Candidates at Sl. Nos. 1 to
16 appear, and in the second Ballot Unit set this Switch to the
position marked’2′. If three Ballot Units are to be used, the Slide
Switch will be set to the position marked’1′in the first Ballot Unit in
which the names of candidates at Sl. Nos. 1 to 16 appear, to the
position marked’2′in the second Ballot Unit in which the names of
contesting candidates at Sl. Nos. 17 to 32 appear, and to the position
marked’3′in the third Ballot Unit. Likewise, if the 4* Ballot Unit is
also to be used if the number of contesting candidates exceeds 48, then
the Slide Switch will be sent to the position marked’4′in the last
Ballot Unit.
Position 1 Position 2 Position 3 Position 4
SEALING
OF BALLOT UNIT Close the Ballot Unit by bringing the top cover back to
its original position. Pass two threads, one through the three holes at
the top and the other through the three holes at the bottom provided for
the purpose and seal each thread with Returning Officer’s seal.
CONTROL
UNIT The Control Unit is to be prepared by the Returning Officer by- a)
Installing the Power Pack. b) Setting the number of contesting
candidates and c) Sealing the Candidate Set Section POWER PACK
INSTALLATION Open the cover of the Candidate Set Section by pressing
slightly inward the latch provided on the left side. Install the Power
Pack specially supplied by mating the socket of the Power Pack to the
plug. Ensure that Power Pack is pressed tight.
SETTING THE NUMBER
OF CONTESTING CANDIDATES After connecting the Power Pack, open the
compartment at the bottom of the Control Unit as explained above, and
proceed as follows for setting the Number of contesting candidates :
a)
Connect the Ballot Unit to the Control Unit by plugging the connector
of the Interconnecting Cable in the socket in that compartment. As the
connector and the plug are multi-pin connectors, it will need some
practice to plug them properly.
The EVM will work only when this
connection is made properly. b) After plugging the connector properly,
push the’Power’switch to’ON’position.
It will give a beep sound
and the”ON”lamp on the Display Section of the Control Unit will glow
GREEN. c) After the’ON’lamp glows GREEN, press the’Cand Set’button in
the Candidate Set Section. There upon the 2 digit Display Panel in the
Display Section will now flash the letters’Cd’. d) When the
letters’Cd’start flashing on the Display Panels on the Control Unit,
press the Candidate’s button against the last contesting candidate in
Ballot Unit.
For example, if there are 9 contesting candidates, press the 9i candidate’s button.
On
that button being pressed, the Display Panels will stop flashing the
letters ‘Cd’. Instead, the full panel will start displaying the
following information sequentially-
This way the machine is set
for 9 contesting candidates. e) Switch OFF the EVM by pushing
the”Power”switch downwards to OFF position and disconnect the
Interconnecting cable from the control unit. For this purpose, the
spring type clips on both sides of the connector hood should be pressed
inward simultaneously and then the connector pulled out. Then close the
door of the compartment at the bottom of the Control Unit.
SEALING
THE CANDIDATE SET SECTION Close the flap which houses the Cand Set
button and pass a thread through the two holes provided on the left side
and seal with the seal of the Returning Officer. Then close the
candidate set section and do the thread seal. While sealing take care
that direct flame does not come in contact with the Control Unit and
molten wax does not fall on any part of the Control Unit.
Put
back the Ballot Unit and the Control Unit in their respective carrying
cases. They are ready for transportation to the Polling Station.
On
the day of Election, the presiding Office shall make the following
preparations: The Ballot Unit sill be checked to see if the Ballot Paper
is properly fixed in ballot display panel under the ballot paper screen
and that the two seals are intact.
In the Control Unit, the
presiding officer will check if the Candidate Set Section is intact and
then connect the Ballot Unit to the Control Unit by plugging the
connector of the
interconnecting cable, put the’Power’switch
to’ON’position and then close the bottom compartment. Then open
the’Result’Section in the Control Unit and press the’Clear’ button to
set all counts to’ZERO’. On completion of the clearing process, the
display panel will start displaying that all counts are set
to’ZERO’sequentially (i. e. one by one, the display panel will show the
total number of candidates, total votes polled and number of votes for
each candidate). If need be the presiding officer will conduct a”MOCK
POLL”in the presence of some polling agents & others.
During
the actual poll, the’Result Section’should be sealed, using special
security paper serially numbered. This paper seal has to be firmly fixed
in the inner cover frame of the Result Section. Here is also a
provision for making a thread seal on the left side of the inner door.
After this, the outer cover of the Result Section has to be pressed for
closing this section.
PROCEDURE DURING POLL The Poll shall
commence at the hour fixed for such commencement. After all procedural
requirements relating to identification of voter, application of
indelible ink on his/her forefinger and obtaining his/her
signature/thumb impression in the Register of Voters have been completed
with regard to the first voter, the voter concerned has to be allowed
for recording his vote. For that purpose, press the’Ballot’button on
Ballot Section of the Control Unit which would make the Ballot Unit
ready for recording of the vote by that voter as has been explained
herein above. Repeat that procedure every time the next voter
is
to be allowed to record his vote. It should be ensured that only one
voter goes inside the voting compartment to vote. Special care should be
taken to ensure that a voter goes in that compartment in the same order
in which his Name is entered in the’Register of Voters.’Also ensure
that the Ballot button is pressed only when the earlier voter has come
out of the voting compartment. At any time, if the total number of votes
polled has to be ascertained,’Total’button should be pressed. The
Display panel will then show the total number of votes polled by that
time. Please remember that the’Total’button is to be pressed only when
the’Busy’lamp is OFF.
After the close of the poll, the close
button will be pressed. When this button is pressed the display panel
will show the total number of candidates and the total number of votes
polled during the day.
On the day of counting, after making the
necessary checks, the Result button I in the Control Unit pressed to
start the Result computation process. On completion of the result
computation process, the total number of candidates, the total number of
votes and the total number of votes for each candidate will be
displayed in the’Display Panel’ sequentially.
While the form of
apparatus herein described constitutes a preferred embodiment of the
invention, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to
this precise form of apparatus, and that changes may be made therein
without departing from the scope and sprit of the invention as defined
in the appended claims.
http://www.sumobrain.com/
EVM AND CYBER LAW (PPT SLIDES IN PDF FORMAT): PRESENTATION MADE IN THE INTL. CONF. HELD ON FEB. 13, 2010 IN CHENNAI
Swamy for expert panel on secure EVMs
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT , The Hindu
CHENNAI, February 13, 2010
http://beta.thehindu.com/
Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy during a press meet in Chennai
on Saturday. Photo: R. Ravindran
Janata Party president
Subramanian Swamy on Saturday demanded that an independent expert
committee be appointed to find out how electronic voting machines could
be safeguarded securely.
Talking to journalists after an
international conference on ‘Electronic voting machines: How
Trustworthy?,’ convened by the Centre for National Renaissance, New
Delhi, he said several countries had banned the use of EVMs. The
international consensus was that EVMs were a danger to democracy as they
were not trustworthy. The Election Commission had not demonstrated that
EVMs could never be rigged. If the Commission wanted to continue their
use, it should give a printed receipt to every voter just as people used
to get in automated teller machines after cash withdrawal. This receipt
was a requirement under the Information Technology Act of 2000, which
the Commission was “adamantly and obstinately” refusing to comply with.
He
said renowned computer experts were ready to demonstrate that EVMs
could be rigged, and stressed the need for an in-built safeguard.
Dr.
Swamy said the next date of hearing of his public interest litigation
petition on the use of EVMs in the Delhi High Court was scheduled for
February 17. He would urge the court to appoint an expert committee to
find out how EVMs could be safeguarded securely.
About 35 experts
from India, Germany, the Netherlands and the U.S. took part in the
conference. Questioning the reliability of EVMs, they said even advanced
countries were reverting to paper ballots as they felt that EVMs were
not trustworthy.
Till Jaeger, Attorney, Supreme Court, Germany, said
the German Supreme Court had said it did not matter that electronic
voting machines were efficient. Their use was a violation of the
fundamental right to information as the voter was unable to see clearly
to whom he was casting his vote and how it was being counted. It was a
constitutional principle in German law that the transparency of
elections was more important than the efficiency of conducting
elections.
Rop Gonggrijp, computer hacker specialist from the
Netherlands, said the Election Commission’s claim that it had invented
EVMs that could not be rigged was ridiculous. At no international
meeting had the Commission proved the transparency of the EVMs. He felt
there was no such thing as ‘unriggable or untamparable.’
J. Alex
Halderman, Professor of Computer Science, University of Michigan, said
that in the beginning, U.S. citizens were enamoured of the EVMs’
efficiency and modernity. Now they felt elections ‘could be stolen’ and
were demanding paper ballots.
David L. Dill, Professor of Computer
Science, Stanford University, in his letter to the Chief Election
Commissioner, had said: “Computerised voting equipment was inherently
subject to ‘programming error, equipment malfunction and malicious
tampering.’ It was time to recognise the reality that there is no basis
for public trust in paperless voting equipment.”
Charge against EC
Hariprasad,
and V.V. Rao, software engineers, said the Commission did not allow
them to complete their demonstration of the tamperability of EVMs.
Commission officials abruptly aborted their demonstration, stating that
they could not be allowed to continue as it involved the patent rights
of the Electronic Corporation of India.
The conference unanimously
resolved that in the interest of free and fair elections, the EVMs
should provide a voter verifiable paper trail, and if it was not
feasible, the Commission should return to the paper ballot system.
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/
By Express News Service
14 Feb 2010 03:22:00 AM IST
Swamy for panel to check if EVMs can be tampered
CHENNAI:
In an effort to put an end to the ongoing controversy over electronic
voting machines’ (EVMs) tamperability, Janata Party president
Subramanian Swamy on Saturday said he would seek a court direction on
forming a committee to look into the issue.
Speaking to reporters
after a day-long international conference on EVMs here, Swamy said the
hearing of his public interest litigation (PIL) on use of EVMs was
scheduled to come up in Delhi High Court on February 17 where he would
press for constituting an apt committee on the issue.
Reacting to
questions on credibility of EVMs, Swamy said, “The machines can be
tampered with at any level (regional and national level) during the
polling season, and if there were no safeguards, the system itself
should be scrapped and the country revert to the ballot paper system of
voting.” Suggesting more transparency in EVMs to end controversies of
tampering, Swamy said, “Voters casting their votes in EVMs should be
given a receipt to show that the vote reached the intended candidate,
which can be stored for future reference.” Challenging the Chief
Election Commissioner Navin Chawla to prove credibility of EVMs in
international forums, Swamy said, “ While all along he is saying that
EVMs can’t be tampered with, the CEC never demonstrated the
untamperability of EVM machines publicly.” “While many countries
(including the electronically advanced nations) have banned the use of
EVMs in their elections due to its vulnerability of tampering and due to
lack of transparency in polling of votes, our CEC is propagating its
usage here without allowing them for public scrutiny,’’ Swamy added.
Though
Swamy had sent an invitation to Navin Chawla to attend the
international conference here, he received a letter from the Election
Commissioner that he was unwell and would not be able to attend it.
http://epaper.expressbuzz.com/
http://epaper.expressbuzz.com/
Can’t rule out electoral rigging, warn foreign experts
Chennai, New Indian Express, Feb. 13, 2010
IN
the first of its kind inter national conference on elec tronic voting
machine (EVMs) organised by th Centre For National Renais sance here on
Saturday, ex perts who participated from countries like Ger many
Netherlands, USA and Sr L a n k a m a i n t a i n e d t h a EVMs are
tamperable an that was why many advance countries have now reverte to
the old system of ballo papers in elections.
Dr Till Jaeger, Attorney
i the Supreme Court of Ger many, and who presente cases related to
bannin EVMs in the country, set th tone of the conference with his
successive persuasion on court in ordering its ban in - the country . He
narrated how - the Supreme Court finally s banned using EVMs in Gere
many’s general elections say - ing its usage was unconstitu - tional
since it limited citizens from verifying their votes.
, Besides
Jaeger, experts i from the Netherlands (Dr t Rop Gonggrijp) and the USA d
(Prof J Alex Halder man) d proved with their presentad tions that
revolved around t how these EVMs could be tampered with and affect the n
results at large.
- Several countries in the d West have already
banned g the use of EVMs in elections e and most recently, Italy and
Japan also decided against using them due to lack of transparency and
preferred to use the old system of ballot papers in casting votes which
according to them was transparent.
In the interest of the
electoral process remaining free and fair, transparent and accountable
to the voter, the 50-odd participants unanimously resolved that the EVMs
should provide a voter verifiable paper trail, and if not feasible,
then the country should return to the paper ballot system.
The conference also decided to go for an action plan and for setting up a dedicated website to propagate the flaws in EVMs.
http://epaper.expressbuzz.com/
Resolution adopted by the participants at the above mentioned Conference on February 13, 2010
At the International Conference on EVMs, the participants consider in
detail the current international practice and law relating to the
deployment of EVMs, the evidence on and the scope for their tamper
ability and the safeguards that are necessary to ensure that the
deployment of EVMs, does not, in any manner, compromise the central
requirements of transparency and accountability to the voter, at each
and every stage of the election process.
In the interest
of the electoral process remaining free and fair, transparent and
accountable to the voter, the participants unanimously resolved that the
EVMs should provide for an voter verifiable paper trail, and if not
feasible then we should return to the paper ballot system.
The participants further resolved that, without such an auditable paper
trail, the two essential requirements, namely transparency and
accountability to the voter and the related requirement of verifiability
of the validity of the votes cast by the voters envisaged under
sections 100 and 101 of the Representation of People Act, 1951 will
stand and seriously compromised as well as infringing Sections 11 to 14
of the Information Technology Act (2000) and the Indian Evidence Act
(1872).
Third Front’s candidate to take EVM matter to court
STAFF WRITER 20:27 HRS IST
Aurangabad,
Oct 17 (PTI) Alleging manipulation of Electronic Voting Machines
(EVMs), the Republican Left Democratic Committee (RLDC) candidate from
Latur City Assembly Constituency said today that he will take the matter
to court.
The candidate, Anna Patil alleged that the EVMs
were manipulated and the software of the machines was altered in such a
fashion that whenever any button was pressed by voters, the vote went to
the Congress candidates’ account.
The Congress candidate from Latur City Assembly Constituency is Amit Deshmukh, son of former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.
After
his allegations, the Returning Officer Vishambar Gawande held a
demonstration yesterday in the presence of four candidates including
Patil and BSP candidate Qayyum Khan.
He tried to explain how it
is impossible to manipulate the EVMs. Patil, not satisfied by the
demonstration, demanded to show the demonstration on the machines that
were used on the polling day, and not on blank machines.
http://www.ptinews.com/news/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
EVM fraud in AP: video on YouTube. Thanks to Senthil Raja for the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
EVM fraud in AP: video on YouTube. Thanks to Senthil Raja for the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Stop press: EVM fraud on Oct. 13, 2009: YouTube video
EVM fraud on Oct. 13, 2009: YouTube Video.
EVM fraud in AP: video on YouTube. Thanks to Senthil Raja for the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Kalyanaraman
EVM Tampering demonstrated in Arunachal Pradesh on Oct. 13, 2009
HTTP://PSENTHILRAJA.WORDPRESS.
ON
THIS SENTHIL RAJA’S BLOG A COMMENT HAS BEEN POSTED BY AINGKU INVITING
REFERENCE TO THE URL
http://friends-of-ziro.
The
demonstrated tampering on a 1min. 18 sec video, is simple and dramatic.
The sequence in which the four candidates were listed on EC documents
were modified on the EVM polling unit. BJP-TMC candidates sequence was
switched; INC-NCP candidates sequence was switched. IntenT? Simply to
register BJP votes to TMC and vice-versa and INC Votes to NCP and
vice-versa.
Did a similar switch take place during the Lok Sabha
Elections in, say, select 100+ constituencies? If so, the EC should be
made accountable in HC/SC to stop using the EVMs in future polls, until a
proper audit trail is put in place and controls as in the case of ATMs
of Banks.
kalyanaraman
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2009
EVM Tampering
History
of sorts was created on October 13, 2009 when repolling was ordered in
two polling stations at Ziro Assembly election. This is so unexpected of
the people of Ziro who are known to be honest and peace-loving. I don’t
recall a single occasion when there was a repoll in Ziro-Hapoli
constituency. It is shameful.
A sticker, exactly similar to the
original one with the names of the candidates and the party symbols was
printed and pasted over the EVM. The orders of the BJP and TMC
candidates on the EVM was exchanged while those of the INC and NCP was
exchanged. This manipulation does not seem to benefit either the INC or
the TMC candidates who are considered the two strongest ones. Is it a
case of an attempted cheating of the electronic machine by a candidate
or just a mischief by a prankster? Whatever is the answer, it has cost
the government dearly and caused lots of hardships to the voters.
Especially this time of the year - the entii pillo.
On the
other hand, this single incident exposes one of the hitherto overlooked
drawbacks of the much acclaimed electronic voting machine (EVM)
introduced in India recently. Possibilities of tampering the EVM has
been discussed in many forums, but no one had anticipated this
seemingly simple one. One more agenda has been added to the training
curriculum for the polling officers in the next election.
Cheating the machine. The case of tampering the Electronic Voting Machine. See Cheating or Mischief video at the website.
Evidence
People
are now talking about the ‘brains’ of the Apatanis. Well, I like to
take that as a compliment. At the same time, I like to take that as a
challenge - the challenge to show the right direction to young people
with such ‘brains’, as they can either be used or misused.
I dream that we use them.
http://friends-of-ziro.
ECIL Engineers Test EVMs. 8.6% defective
September 26th, 2009
SEPPA:
A first level checking of the EVMs was conducted at Seppa Election
office, by the highly skilled team of ECIL Engineers headed by S.C
Sarkar from Hydrabad.
Out of total 347 checked control unit 30
were found defective. At least 3 EVMs have been issued to the AROs of
the various circle of the district so far- one each to ARO Seijosa, ARO
Pijirang, ARO Bameng. Meanwhile a board has fixed Rs 200 per day for the
porters.
http://arunachalnews.com/ecil-
EVM: Incompetence or Intent?
Recap from yesterday (Sept. 16, 2009):
The serious questions being asked include:
If the polling was not even complete how could “votes polled” data be available for all but 47 of the 8071 candidates?
If
EVM’s were secure with DEO/district collectors, and elections were not
even held in many constituencies, how was the data for 8023 candidates
or all but 47 of the 8071 candidates available to the ECI on files
downloaded between these dates?
…If this is a Mistake, Why No Clarifications from the ECI?
Read on:
On
the 6th of May Anupam and Prof Nalapat asked the ECI to clarify whether
the spreadsheet that had “votes polled” for each candidate contained
test data, actual votes polled or was it a wrong file?
On 31st May, they made another formal request to the ECI specifically asking:
Can
you kindly indicate what the data in the CandidateAC downloaded from
http://eci.nic.in/
and 15th is? Why is the Final votes polled data not uploaded till date
at this location? When do you plan to upload it?”
On the 7th of July 2009, they sent another, more detailed request for clarification.
The response of ECI?
Nothing…no comment at all.
This
is hardly reassuring and raises all kinds of questions. The most
important - however outrageous it may sound - being: “Were the results
of some Lok Sabha constituencies decided even before polling?”
.
As
Anupam and Prof Nalapat noted in their article in Covert, there are not
too many ways in which the information about “votes polled” in the
spreadsheet on the ECI website could have changed BEFORE the results
were actually announced.
Realistically, this could have only happened if:
1. Someone had hacked the file.
2. The data from various EVMs had been uploaded to the private database, and this was used to create the public file.
3. Someone who had access to the private database had actually added the data.
In their own words (emphasis mine):
The
first possibility is serious, as it implies that the databases hosted
by the ECI are not secure and can be compromised. The second is a
violation of the ECI’s rule that no counting was to begin till 16 May.
It also constitutes a breach of security, as the EVMs were supposed to
be in safe custody in a strong room of the DEO [district election
officer]. The third would imply that the election results were being
decided by whoever had access to the private database. If the results
were to be read only from the EVMs, why was a coded spreadsheet
prepared? How could this spreadsheet have the data on “votes polled”?
Sceptics
might say that the coded data containing information on the votes
polled was test or dummy data. If so, why was this test or dummy data
prepared? What was being tested? How was this test data generated? What
were the results of the tests? Why was the data generated after the
first three phases of polling, but before the fourth and fifth phases?
Why was the data removed when there was no intention of loading real
data into the file? Why was the dummy data coded? How do 108 winning
candidates in the dummy data match the eventual winners?
If you are still not convinced that something has gone wrong somewhere, this last bitwill probably clinch the argument:
The
various versions of the files downloaded from ECI website by
Nalapat-Saraph on 6th, 7th and 11th May and the data were merged
together along with the final results found on ECI site on June 2nd…
2.
Candidates in every constituency were ranked as 1, 2 and 3 on the basis
of the votes seen in ECI excel sheets on 6th, 7th and 11th May.
3. Then the same candidates were ranked within each constituency based on the votes recorded on June 2nd spreadsheet by ECI.
The Result?
1. Out of 543 constituencies, we find 106 winning positions (rank 1) matched for all four dates
2. 80 candidates matched for the rank 2 and
3. 59 for the rank 3…
Basic probability theory suggests that such a coincidence is practically impossible…So what exactly was happening?
Will we ever find out? I am not hopeful.
Interestingly, buried within the avalanche of “breaking stories”, I found this snippet in the ET last week (emphasis mine):
CPM
leaders (Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury), accompanied by member
secretariat V Srinivasa Rao and a technical expert Prabir Purkayastha,
told the commission and technical experts present at the meeting that
both hardware and software should be in public domain. Further, it said
the chips manufactured by ECIL, BEL should be allowed for yearly random
third-party inspections either by NIC or IITs.
…They said these
steps were necessary to ‘restore the ‘confidence’ in EVMs as there have
been “reporting of errors in some machines and discrepancies in
results”.
On EVMs and Some Unanswered Questions
A few
weeks ago, during my last visit to Bharat, I met Anupam Saraph, Pune’s
Chief Information Commissioner. I was introduced to Anupam via a chain
triggered by Barun Mitra.
I was keen to meet him, especially as
his profile seemed to be very very intriguing. Anupam and I met on a
rainy evening at ShivSagar restaurant (the best coffee for its price in
Pune, I think!) and it was only around 10pm that I realised we had been
talking for 3 hours!
What Anupam told me that day was
unbelievable…So I asked him to email me more information. Within two
days, Anupam sent me a bunch of links - all pointing to something that
had gone seriously wrong with either EVMs, data upload by the Election
Commission - or both (and possibly something else)
I hurriedly
glanced through some of the links but decided to write about it on the
blog only after I had gone through them in some detail.
I am glad
I did. Below is a story about EVMS and some unanswered questions…in the
words of Anupam and Prof M Nalapat. Do read and think about it. Reading
about what they uncovered made me feel very uneasy…
I am now
pretty sure that there is something that has gone wrong which we do not
know about (yet). Most of you will not be surprised that Anupam was
hounded when he went public with his fears…and no mainstream newspaper
would touch their report or findings (sole exception: Mid-Day in
Mumbai).
If it was not for the internet, the story would have been censored and buried - never to see the light of the day.
In
view of this report, the concern raised by Vidhya on one of my previous
posts - ought to be taken seriously (Like most other readers, I too was
guilty of dismissing the concerns as mere conjecture and a bit of “sour
grapes”. I may have been very wrong). Read on:
.
From Tracking the Elections 2009 (emphasis mine):
Elections
were held in 5 phases across India. The last phase of polling was
completed on the 13th of May 2009. The counting of votes was to begin on
the 16th of May 2009.
The data of various candidates could be
obtained from the Election Commission of India’s website. In order to
track the elections and upload candidate and constituency information
onto this wiki, we accessed this website and regularly downloaded the
CandidateAC file from there. This spreadsheet had various columns
containing information of all candidates including their political
affiliations, age, address etc. There was also a column for “votes
polled” and some “coding” called “DECODE(FINALISED,’YES’,’
By
virtue of the Election Rules no votes polled data/exit poll was to be
available before the 16th of May 2009, least of all on the Election
Commission of India Website.
…
The excel spreadsheets on
candidate information for all India downloaded from the ECI website
between the 6th and 15th of May had “coded” Candidate Names, Party Names
and votes polled. Despite repeated queries the ECI has not clarified
the meaning of this data. This has resulted in widespread speculation
and raised serious questions about the the management and integrity of
the democratic process.
…
The serious questions being asked include:
What
was the coded data in the “votes polled” column in the versions of the
spreadsheet downloaded between the 6th and 11th of May?
Why were the spreadsheets between these dates “coded” all of a sudden?
If the polling was not even complete how could “votes polled” data be available for all but 47 of the 8071 candidates?
If
EVM’s were secure with DEO/district collectors, and elections were not
even held in many constituencies, how was the data for 8023 candidates
or all but 47 of the 8071 candidates available to the ECI on files
downloaded between these dates?
…
If data in these files was
test/dummy data, how does it match the winners in 108 constituencies or
106 according to another analysis?
…
If the the data in these
files was test/dummy data, what was it testing? Why was this test taking
place during the polling period?
What tests were these that required only some data to keep changing and others to remain unchanging?
*** To be continued ***
Rahul
Mehta in Ahmedabad, has been raising similar issues for a long time
now. Rahul is ex-IIT Delhi (Computer Science), founder of a political
party/social movement and also contested from Gandhinagar this time.
Checkout his EVM related effort here:
http://www.opednews.com/
September 10, 2009 at 13:19:29
PAPERLESS ELECTRONIC ELECTION UPHELD BY GERMAN SUPREME COURT
By William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
In
a ruling handed down earlier this year, Germany’s highest court, the
Federal Constitutional Court, upheld the constitutionality of recent
elections to the German legislative branch known as the Bundestag
(similar to the US Senate). An English translation of the ruling is now
available.
Two of the losing candidates sued for “a scrutiny of
the election,” in the hope of having it invalidated. They first
challenged the election in the Bundestag. After the Bundestag rejected
their claims, they appealed to the High Court.
The Controlling Law
The
Court declared the constitutional principles that it follows in cases
like this. These principles are derived from the German Constitution, or
“Basic Law.” Article 38, section one, of the Basic Law states, in part,
that “Members of the German Bundestag shall be elected in general,
direct, free, equal, and secret elections.” This has traditionally been
interpreted to mean that elections should be conducted in ways that are
consistent with the highest principles of democracy. Since the end of
WWII, German law has developed and articulated these principles.
The
Court stated, for example, “The public nature of elections is a
fundamental pre-condition for democratic will-formation.” Such public
elections are also a “major precondition for the well-founded trust of
citizens in the correct operation of the elections.” (Para 107 et seq)
Public
monitoring of elections is necessary “so that manipulation can be ruled
out or corrected and unjustified suspicion can be refuted.” Trust in
elections is best assured only if they are carried out “before the eyes
of the public.” (Para 108) Hence, the conduct of elections should not
require any specialized knowledge on the part of the voters.
The Complaints of the Challengers
The
complainants contended, among other things, that the use of electronic
paperless “computer-controlled voting machines” in this election
violated Germany’s Basic Law.
They argued, in effect, that to be
democratic, at best elections should consist of voters marking paper
ballots, which are then placed in boxes, counted by hand, and stored
securely in case a re-count was called for. If voting machines are
allowed, they should have a voter-verified paper audit trail to ensure
the integrity of the election, and in case a re-count is needed.
One
of the legal briefs filed in the case was by The Chaos Computer Club.
(Para 86 et seq) They vehemently opposed the use of computer-controlled
voting machines. They also argued that a voter-verified paper audit
trail was essential for an honest vote count, and for a reliable
re-count. Electronic machines do not give an actual re-count, but only
the same count repeated. Besides that, the computer-controlled machines
can be programmed prior to an election to adjust the vote and alter the
outcome in ways that are undetectable. The “fix”can be programmed into
the source code before the machines are used. During, or immediately
after, the election the votes can be changed by a remote computer, or a
nefarious insider. These suspicions are aggravated because Nedap, the
company supplying the machines, insists on its right to keep their codes
secret; hence, the entire election cannot be trusted.
Applying the Law
The
Court explained that several factors are needed to satisfy the
requirement of the “public nature” of elections. This includes that
elections be based on laws written and passed according to the Basic
Law, and supervised by public officials. Also, an election is “public in
nature” because the public is participating in it. (Para 140-144) The
Court noted that in a representative democracy, the people do not have
to be directly involved in every detail. So long as they feel they have a
satisfactory understanding of the process, and sufficient confidence in
those who conduct the elections, the requirements for a public nature
and public monitoring of elections are met.
The Court agreed that
some of the misconduct alleged by the parties might be possible in
theory. However, it also agreed with the ministry in charge of elections
that these claims are “an over-evaluation of technical security
requirements as to the voting machines.” (Para 87-88) Nothing in these
claims justified even a partial invalidation of the election. (Para
162-164) Indeed, compared to marked paper ballots put in a ballot box,
or voting by mail, the electronic machines are at least as secure, if
not more so. These conclusions were also reached by the Committee for
the Security of Elections, and their report was unanimously accepted by
the Bundestag. (Para 90-100) The Court declined to substitute its
judgment for that of the legislature.
However, the Court did
agree that the voting machines used were so complex that they were “not
compatible with the principle of the public nature of elections.” Only
the manufacturer’s technicians could understand and monitor the
functioning of these machines. Hence, the public was not adequately
represented in the monitoring of the machine usage by officials from the
elections ministry. But this constitutional shortcoming was not so
severe as to require a re-run of the election. There was no evidence of
mechanical error, or of manipulation of the votes cast or counted.
Although
the Court did not specify this, it seemed to imply that if the agency
in charge of the elections had had personnel sufficiently knowledgeable
to monitor the operations of the machines, the constitutional
requirement would be satisfied. With such personnel working in the
public agency, sufficient public monitoring of the equipment could be
conducted. The voters only need to know how to vote, not how source
codes record votes.
The Court also held that a regulation made by
the ministry in charge of administering the election was
unconstitutionally vague. (Para 145 et seq) While the Court offered some
suggestions as to how the inadequate language could be tightened up,
the errors in the regulation were not so bad that the election should be
invalidated because of them.
Conclusion
After its lengthy
and minutely detailed discussion, Germany’s Supreme Court upheld the
constitutionality of this election. The inadequacy of the agency
regulation, and the shortcomings of the machines, were harmless errors.
This
opinion, upholding paperless electronic voting in Germany, has
far-reaching implications. The arguments and conclusions made in that
opinion can also be applied to the use of Internet voting – another
form of paperless electronic voting. Thus, this ruling paves the way
for Internet voting in Germany.
While German law, of course, has
no precedent value in the US, it can have considerable persuasive value.
That is, the legal reasoning and conclusions of the German Supreme
Court can be a model for US courts and law-makers to emulate.
In short, this opinion may one day prove to be a milestone in the history of Internet voting in the US.
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
http://ssrn.com/author=1053589
PMK team tries its hand on EVMs in New Delhi
By Express News Service
28 Aug 2009 03:05:00 AM IST
CHENNAI:
The PMK team led by its president G K Mani on Thursday inspected the
electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the presence of full Commission
comprising three Election Commissioners — Navin Chawla, V S Sampath and S
Y Qureshi — in New Delhi. However, the party has requested the
Commission to provide an opportunity on September 7 to prove their
contention that the evms could be tampered with.
The team comprising
retired IAS officer MG Devasahayam, advocate K Balu, Supreme Court
advocate Dugar Rai and Pune-based IT expert Vijayendra Gupta inspected
the EVMs in the presence of a 10-member expert team of the Election
Commission.
The team was given EVMs and tools required to operate
them. PMK sources said the members were satisfied with the EC’s approach
in this regard. The EC had asked the PMK to provide technical
information about how the EVMs could be tampered with and it would be
considered seriously.
During their meeting, Navin Chawla said the PMK
would be given sufficient time to prove that the EVMs could be tampered
with and that the team could even open the spare parts of the machines.
The PMK has sought for another opportunity on September 7. PMK sources
said the party would go there with more software and hardware experts to
inspect the EVMs.
In its memorandum, the PMK team told the
Commission that “We would like to demonstrate the tamperability of the
EVM in the presence of an ‘independent committee of experts comprising
EC and party nominees’. The ECI should constitute such a committee and
provide EVMs to us for demonstration.”
In this connection, the PMK
team submitted a memorandum to the EC in which it said the ECI should
provide a few EVMs randomly picked from various polling booths in the
country by their experts team. The PMK team said, “Our team would tamper
3-4 machines and would request ECI technical committee to identify the
tampered machines.”
http://www.expressbuzz.com/
Voting machines: hackable, crackable, hijackable
August 19, 5:15 PM · Garry Reed - Dallas Libertarian Examiner
According
to a Raw Story write-up from August 12, 2009, a party of profs and post
grads from Cal – San Diego, Michigan, and Princeton universities hacked
into an electronic voting machine and tainted the tall. They wanted to
prove that criminals (their euphemism for Democrat or Republican Party
operatives?) could start from scratch with no source codes or inside
info, find a weakness, hack the security, and develop their own attack
software.
They proved that someone could easily break into the
machines the night before an election and install hacking software that
would alter the results on election day – all without detection.
Their educational caper cost $100,000; a pittance compared to most politicians’ political campaign purses.
And yet the brainiac “experts” keep telling us voting machines are spoof-proof.
If
you don’t believe that everything is hackable, crackable or hijackable,
vote counters included, consider just a scant handful of recent
reports:
From Fox News, August 17, 2009 – Three hackers were
indicted in an identity theft case that netted over 130 million credit
and debit card numbers, along with other account info, stolen from three
corporations, including the Dallas-based 7-Eleven convenience store
chain. This easily eclipsed the previous American Indoor Hacking
record…
From InfoWorld, July 27, 2009 – Internet hosting
company Network Solutions announced that someone dipped their illicit
software snares into the company’s digital pool and fished out half a
million of their customer’s credit card numbers.
A letter sent to
merchants who use their Ecommerce Hosting services admitted that
somebody gained “unauthorized access to credit card account numbers,
names and addresses of some of your customers.”
From Wired, July
31, 2009 - Pentagon hacker and 9/11 truther Gary McKinnon is set to be
extradited back to the U.S. from England where he faces trial for
hacking into 97 computers, including 53 Army, 26 Navy, 16 NASA, and 1
each Department of Defense and Air Force, between February 2001 and
March 2002.
He’s also accused of crashing some systems, deleting
critical files, shutting down the Army’s Military District of Washington
network of over 2,000 computers for 24 hours, and in general causing
over $700,000 in damages.
McKinnon, whose hacker handle is
“Solo,” insists he was on a moral crusade in search of evidence of a UFO
cover-up by the military.
From LewRockwell.com, August 13, 2009 –
In an article on the libertarian website, Paul Green tells the tale of a
teenaged boy jailed for “swatting” his online-gaming adversaries.
First, he tracked down a person’s IP address. Next, he hacked his
intended victim’s internet provider for personal details. Then, spoofing
(faking) his target’s telephone number, he made an emergency call that
resulted in armed SWAT teams invading his opponent’s house.
And for local readers…
From
Dallas Business Journal, September 19, 2008 – Ready for another hacking
term? Reflashing. Dallas was a “hotbed of hackers” last year when
TracFone filed 13 lawsuites against 50-plus Dallas-area businesses and
individuals who bought the phones in bulk, reflashed them so they could
be used on other wireless networks, and resold them for a profit.
If
every kind of giga-gadget and digital widget from military mainframes
to remotely started keyless-entry security-encoded nose hair trimmers
can be hacked, is it any wonder that libertarians have long looked
askance not only at electronic voting machines but at the very concept
of voting itself? Some still check a box for the perceived “lesser of
two evils” while others pull nothing but the Libertarian lever.
But why bother when your choice of Charlie can be changed to Charlene without you ever knowing it?
The
state mandating more electronic voting machines just gives more props
to libertarians who refuse to vote at all on the principle that voting
only serves to encourage the out-of-wedlock reprobates who run for
public power.
Working within the system means getting grifted by the system.
So figure it out for yourself:
1.
It has long been proved by constant hacks and virus attacks that any
good geek with off-the-shelf gear is light years ahead of the
government-academic-corporate rocket scientist security experts,
including the colossal computer corporations who stand to make millions
by selling vulnerable voting devices to the politicos.
2. Every electronic voting machine in the nation is under the control of some government entity at some level.
3. Trust them like you trust the dope-smoking mope next door who wants to diddle your daughter.
A boycott to stem ‘vote for money’
By Anbumani Ramadoss
19 Aug 2009 11:49:00 PM IST
When
the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), Pattali Makkal
Katchi (PMK) and Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) announced
their boycott of the assembly by-elections in Tamil Nadu, they were
spurred by memories of the recent parliamentary elections. The elections
in Tamil Nadu witnessed the gross misuse of science — electronic voting
machines (EVMs) were manipulated and systematic rigging was resorted to
by officials showcasing blatant use of money power to the advantage of
the ruling party, handing them stupendous victory on a silver platter,
defying all principles of democracy, ethics and logic. The entire
election drama was staged with such shocking impunity and lack of
compunction that the opposition parties and the conscientious public
watched with benumbing horror. The spectacle of the democratic process
crumbled down like a pack of cards.
Elections in Tamil Nadu were held
on May 13, 2009. Till May 9, the AIADMK front was thought to be well on
its way to a winning streak. Abruptly, the situation changed —
dramatically. I surmise the cartwheel turned due to the tsunami of money
that raised its ugly head and gobbled up the gullible.
After two
corrections, when the final polling percentage of 73 per cent was
announced the day after the elections, it clearly suggested two
possibilities. Such an increase in polling meant that either people
voted in large numbers in support of the Sri Lankan issue or the
inconceivable had happened due to manipulated rigging by the ruling
party. Sadly, the latter emerged to be true. Any increase in polling
percentage over that of the previous elections has always gone against
the party in power. Defying all electoral predictions and norms, an
unprecedented 12.2 per cent increase in polling over the last elections,
in 2004, has given a resounding victory to the ruling Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam (DMK), contrary to the predictions of the media, private
surveys, Intelligence Bureau reports etc, which predicted a clean sweep
for the AIADMK front.
West Bengal recorded the highest polling
percentage of 81.3 per cent, an increase of 3.3 per cent over that of
2004 and the opposition garnered 25 seats, more than it had ever managed
to garner in the long past. Kerala, with the second highest polling
percentage of 73.3 per cent registered an increase of 1.8 per cent over
the last elections, handing 15 seats out of 20 to the opposition
coalition. Tamil Nadu was the lone exception. The state recorded 73 per
cent polling and had the third highest polling percentage in the
country. The increase of 12.2 per cent over the previous elections gave
28 out of 40 seats to the ruling coalition, a clear deviation from past
trends.
What is surprising is that when the DMK front swept 40 out of
40 seats in the 2004 parliamentary elections, the polling percentage
was only 60.8 per cent. The polling percentage of all the seven
constituencies where the PMK contested this time was around 80 per cent,
that points towards massive rigging by the ruling party.
During his
press meet, the chief electoral officer of Tamil Nadu, Naresh Gupta,
mentioned that one polling booth, which had a PMK contestant, recorded
100 per cent polling. He said that nearly 725 polling booths had
recorded more than 90 per cent polling. According to political
scientists and experts, the probability of a polling booth recording a
100 per cent turnout is next to impossible. Incidentally, when some of
the polling booths had more than 80 per cent polling during the last
elections, re-polls were ordered. The logical question that arises now
is: What or who stopped the election commissioner from doing an encore
this time, announcing a re-poll in these booths?
No doubt that a
combination of various factors led to the thumping victory of the DMK
front during the current Lok Sabha elections. Money power, muscle power,
blatant misuse of government machinery, rigged EVMs and the flouting of
all Election Commission norms helped the esteemed members of the DMK
front to be ensconced comfortably in their coveted seats.
Devious
machinations by the DMK front went into the scheming of the rigging to
make the results appear genuine. The DMK front could have won all the 40
seats contested by its members on the strength of these malpractices.
Yet, to give an impression that the results were genuine, they willingly
gave 12 seats to the opposition. However, those who were not in the
good books of the DMK were all ignominiously defeated. The fate of E V K
S Elangovan, R Prabhu, K V Thangabalu, Manishankar Iyer, Vaiko and all
the PMK candidates was decided well in advance by the DMK.
The PMK
was the hardest hit in this conspiracy. It is alleged that the DMK spent
anywhere between Rs 40 to 70 crore in each of the PMK constituencies.
The highest amount was spent in the Arakkonam constituency which is
estimated to be around Rs 70 crore where the PMK candidate R Velu and
erstwhile minister of state for railways contested. R Velu, a retired
IAS officer, who has an exemplary reputation not only in Tamil Nadu but
also in the entire country, lost out to S Jagathrakshakan, currently MoS
(I& B) who is the owner of a distillery, a hotelier and the
chancellor of a deemed university (which was in the news recently for
being caught on tape demanding capitation fees for an MBBS seat).
The
clandestine operations were carried out during the dark hours of the
night, for distributing money from house to house. The upshot of these
undesirable developments was that a case was filed in the Supreme Court
against the use of EVMs by V V Rao and in the high court by the PMK.
Almost all national and regional parties including the BJP, CPI(M), CPI,
SP, RJD, BSP, TC, JDU, TDP, LJP, AIADMK, PMK, MDMK, and DMDK have come
down heavily against the use of EVMs for future elections.
The
responsibility of infusing confidence among the public and the parties
regarding the reliable use of the EVMs lies with the judiciary and the
Election Commission. In the context of the miserable failure of the EVMs
during the recent elections, it makes sense to go back to the
traditional ballot system. In fact, most of the developed countries are
going back to the traditional ballot system due to the undependability
of the EVM. The recalcitrant attitude of the Election Commission, with a
preconceived mindset in continuing with the EVM seems incomprehensible.
The election commissioner’s argument is that in India we use a
standalone EVM whereas the developed countries use a centrally linked
EVM. Ironically, according to experts the standalone EVM system is
easier to manipulate than a centrally linked EVM system.
It is
believed that the media was threatened and gagged so that free and fair
reporting was not done. I am not writing this out of a sense of
frustration because we lost, but out of a fervent desire for free and
fair elections that uphold the democratic principles of the largest
democracy in the world — at least in the future.
Among other gimmicks
employed to lure the public, the ruling DMK doled out a lot of freebies
to the general public like TVs, LPG connections, rice for one rupee,
etc. Apart from this, the DMK government took advantage of the dismal
plight of the indigent and bought votes for a ‘fee’ ranging from Rs 100
to Rs 2,000 per vote. The DMK front has created ‘history’ whipping up a
frenzy of mass scale corruption enticing the public to accept bribe for
their votes, thereby creating a new culture.
Officials manning the
polling booths were handpicked by the government in the seven
constituencies where the PMK candidates contested and were allegedly
asked to poll between 100 and 200 votes illegally, without arousing
suspicion of large-scale rigging, but effectively ensuring victory to
the ruling front. Strict instructions were given not to poll more than
200 illegal votes per booth to obliterate the suspicion of rigging,
Computing the statistics on this basis, 100 votes on an average in 1,300
polling booths per constituency will count up to 1,30,000 votes and 200
votes per polling booth is 2,60,000 votes per constituency. No wonder
PMK and other parties were hit very hard.
During the parliamentary
elections money was inundating the state like uncontrollable floods. It
has been alleged that an inspector of police was paid Rs 25,000, a sub
inspector Rs 15,000, a polling officer got Rs 10,000 and a party booth
agent pocketed Rs 5,000, apart from Rs 100 to Rs 2,000 per vote that the
general public received. The Election Commission was in a trance of
‘Masterly Inactivity’. All complaints by the opposition fell on deaf
ears.
Innumerable complaints against election code transgressions
went unheeded. When the PMK party cadre caught persons belonging to the
opposition party distributing money red-handed, and took them to the
authorities, cases were filed against the PMK cadre rather than against
the perpetrators of malpractice. The district collectors and district
superintendents of police exhibited their allegiance to the DMK
blatantly. Even my meeting with the Big Three — the chief election
commissioner Navin Chawla, Quareshi and Sampath, turned out to be a
formal meeting without any outcome.
It is beyond doubt that the EVMs
were pre-programmed for the DMK’s victory. Numerous complaints about the
malfunctioning of the EVMs also went unheeded. It has been said that
when the voting button was pressed against the PMK symbol, the light was
blipping against the DMK candidate’s name. Amidst all this, the common
man and his rights have been conveniently forgotten. Every individual
has the right to know to which candidate his/her vote was cast, but who
cares?
While our alliance worked round the clock for door-to-door
election campaigns at all levels with senior leaders like J
Jayalalithaa, Ramadoss, Vaiko, Varadharajan of CPI(M), Nalla Kannu
(CPI), Prakash Karat and others personally visiting villages, towns and
cities of Tamil Nadu, there was hardly any campaign in the opposite
camp, with the exception of the present deputy chief minister, M K
Stalin. Without exaggeration, I would like to disclose that during the
five weeks I campaigned for elections, I did not come across any DMK
leader or party worker campaigning in any village or town.
It was
alleged that the ruling party threatened to stop the NREGS in the
villages if the people did not vote for them. Till the time of
elections, the ruling party paid Rs 120 over the wages of Rs 80 per day
under the scheme. It was also alleged that self help groups were paid Rs
2,000 to Rs 20,000 almost throughout Tamil Nadu, depending on their
power of persuasion.
The money plundered by the sand mafia, rice
mafia, sugar mafia, liquor mafia and other unscrupulous elements was
used freely by the ruling party to systematically create a new culture
of ‘vote for money,’ whether the candidate is a competent leader or not.
In future, economically deprived candidates or political parties cannot
even think of contesting elections due to the advent of this new
culture. It is the duty of the Election Commission to restore the
confidence in the electoral system for a free and fair election and
uphold the democratic and constitutional values and principles.
Otherwise, the general public would soon lose faith and shun these types
of farcical elections.
If such a large-scale electoral scam can be
planned and executed so systematically and scientifically during the
massive parliamentary elections, a by-election is simply a walk over.
Thirumangalam was the starting point for the commencement of the new
culture of ‘vote for money,’ which has been perfected during the recent
parliamentary elections in Tamil Nadu. This made even the former CEC
Gopalaswami castigate the DMK government saying that Tamil Nadu was
worse than Bihar. The by-election may just happen to be a repetition of
this objectionable trend. Is there any necessity to waste people’s time
and money in conducting a farce? Why not announce the winner right away
and eschew all the drama?
After all, the recent parliamentary
elections do not reflect the true defeat of the PMK nor is it a true
victory for the DMK. When justice and fair practice prevail, there will
be true victory.
(The author is a former Union health minister)
Poll panel allows petitioners to show EVM’s tamperbility
Ians
August 17th, 2009
NEW
DELHI - The Election Commission Monday met petitioners who have filed
cases in courts across the country challenging the efficacy of
electronic voting machines (EVMs) and agreed to offer machines so they
could demonstrate their claims of tamperability.
We met the
Election Commission and demanded it offer us EVMs to demonstrate that
these can be tampered with. The commission has agreed and will tell us
tomorrow (Tuesday) of the time to give this demonstration,” Hari Prasad,
managing director of Net India, a Hyderabad based software company,
told IANS after the meeting.
Two engineers of Net India are also petitioners in this case.
All
three Election Commissioners were present along with their expert
committee at the meeting with the delegation which included observers
from political parties and technical experts.
Prasad said he has
asked for 20 EVMs that he will pick randomly from different booths to
demonstrate that these can be tampered with.
The commission has reiterated several times that the machines were tamper-proof.
The
first attack against the EVMs came from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
leader L.K. Advani. Later, other political leaders also voiced their
concerns about the reliability of the EVMs used during the April-May
Lok Sabha polls.
Since many cases were filed on the matter in
various courts, the commission invited those who had approached the
courts and political parties to its headquarters in New Delhi to discuss
the issue.
http://blog.taragana.com/n/
AIADMK, SP leaders meet EC to prove EVM tampering
PTI 17 August 2009, 08:16pm IST
NEW
DELHI: A delegation comprising leader of two political parties and
technical experts today met Election Commission officials and discussed
with them the possibility of tampering of EVMs.
The delegation,
comprising leaders of AIADMK and Samajwadi Party, said the Commission
has asked them to demonstrate at a later date that the machines can be
tampered with.
“The Election Commission wants the demonstration
be done on their EVMs and they will fix a date later,” AIADMK
spokesperson V Maithreyan told reporters after meeting the three-member
commission.
However, Commission sources said no dates have been fixed.
“Our
team was ready to demonstrate with a sample machine how the EVM can be
tampered. But the EC was not prepared to undergo that exercise”, he
said.
“The EC wanted us to prove that the EVMs used by them (EC) can be tampered with,” Maithreyan said.
“We have accepted the challenge of EC and will “prove that EVM can be tampered with,” he added.
The
EC had earlier in a statement said that “it remains entirely satisfied
that EVMs cannot be tampered with and are fully tamper-proof.”
http://timesofindia.
Oldest PSU to develop first biometric EVM
Maneesh Chhibber Posted online: Monday , Aug 17, 2009 at 0338 hrs
New
Delhi : The country’s oldest public sector undertaking (PSU) is all set
to play a major role in ushering in a new era in the way elections are
conducted in the country. Bangalore-based ITI Limited is on the verge of
developing what could be the country’s first biometric electronic
voting machine (EVM).
With concerns over whether the EVMs that the
Election Commission of India (EC) presses into service during elections
can be hacked, the biometric EVMs could effectively end all debate about
the fairness of the electoral process. In October last, the then Chief
Election Commissioner, N Gopalaswami, had said that the EC was
considering introduction of biometric EVMs. Last week, the EC held a
meeting with Nandan Nilekani, recently-appointed chief of the UID
project, where the issue of biometric EVMs was also discussed.
The
biometric EVMs, which the ITI Ltd is developing, would identify voters
by their fingerprints, thereby putting an end to all bogus voting and
impersonation. When contacted, Lt Col A M Uniyal (retd), General Manager
(R&D), ITI Ltd, confirmed that the company was working on the new
type of EVMs. “Beyond that I can’t tell you anything,” he said.
A
source in the EC said with the Government of India having already set
up an authority to provide unique identity cards to the citizens, the
problem of a database of biometric prints of the voters would
automatically be solved.
http://www.indianexpress.com/
E-Voting Takes Another Hit
August 16, 2009 Mike Pearson
The design requirements for e-voting are high, preventing not-yet-discovered attacks.
A
group of computer scientists have shown how voting results, held in
electronic voting machines, can be changed using a novel hacking
technique. It’s yet another reason why we need to have a verifiable,
auditable, paper-trail for electronic voting machines.
“This
research shows that voting machines must be secure even against attacks
that were not yet invented when the machines were designed and sold.
Preventing not-yet-discovered attacks requires an extraordinary level of
security engineering, or the use of safeguards such as voter-verified
paper ballots,” said Edward Felten, an author on the new study; Director
of the Center for Information Technology Policy; and Professor of
Computer Science and Public Affairs at Princeton University.
http://mikepearsonnz.amplify.
From a statement:
To
take over the voting machine, the computer scientists found a flaw in
its software that could be exploited with return-oriented programming.
But before they could find a flaw in the software, they had to reverse
engineer the machine’s software and its hardware—without the benefit of
source code.
Essentially, return-oriented programming is a
technique that uses pieces of existing system code to exploit the
system. In this demonstration, the researchers successfully performed a
buffer-overflow.
The team of scientists involved in the study
included Shacham, as well as researchers from the University of Michigan
and Princeton University. The hacked voting system was a Sequoia AVC
Advantage electronic voting machine.
Shacham concluded that paper-based elections are the ay to go. I wouldn’t go that far, but he did:
“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.”
I’d settle for verifiable paper-based audit trail.
Professor Edward Felten, a long-time observer of electronic voting systems also commented:
“This
research shows that voting machines must be secure even against attacks
that were not yet invented when the machines were designed and sold.
Preventing not-yet-discovered attacks requires an extraordinary level of
security engineering, or the use of safeguards such as voter-verified
paper ballots,” said Edward Felten, an author on the new study; Director
of the Center for Information Technology Policy; and Professor of
Computer Science and Public Affairs at Princeton University.
In
February 2008, Felten demonstrated how he was able to access several
electronic voting systems at multiple locations in New Jersey.
EVM hacking: EC accountable under cyber law: IT Act 2000
I
have collated and summarised arguments demonstrating EVM hacking and
the imperative of subjecting EC to a forensic audit by an independent
agency under the directions of the Supreme Court. The splendid
contributions made by Prof. J Krishnayya, Dr. Anupam Saraph, Prof. MD
Nalapat, Sri Rajeev Srinivasan, Prof. Sohan Prabhakar Modak, Sri Senthi
Raja are gratefully acknowledged.
Freedom we have earned has to be defended resolutely. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
EC
like caesar’s wife should be above suspicion. Now, EC is tainted as it
has entered the complex cyber world, has to justify its constitutional
status before the peoples’ court and explain fully the measures taken to
guard against cyber frauds in the wireless technology age exemplified
by a chip the size of a pencil head can transmit and receive messages
when buttoned on to a device like the EVM.
Our ancestors
of the 10th century (919 CE) seem to have conducted elections — with
secret ballots using pots — much more efficiently as recorded in the
Uttaramerur (near Kanchipuram) inscription of King Parantaka chola .
This was mentioned during the Constituent Assembly debates by T.
Prakasam (who was CM of Madras Presidency) while referring to the
democratic traditions of our nation.
http://parliamentofindia.nic.
Assembly Debates) This inscription which refers to adult suffrage and
secret ballot, was cited during Constituent Assembly deliberations for
drafting the Constitution of independent Bharat. “Shri T. Prakasam
(Madras: General): The Honourable Mr. Madhava Rau said that the ballot
box and ballot paper were not known to our ancestors. I would like to
point out to him, Sir, that the ballot box and the ballet papers were
described in an inscription on the walls of a temple in the villages of
Uttaramerur, twenty miles from Conjeevaram (Kanchipuram). Every detail
is given there. The ballot box was a pot with the mouth tied and placed
on the ground with a hole made atthe bottom and the ballot paper was the
kadjan leaf and adult franchise was exercised. The election took place
not only for that village but for the whole of India. This was just a
thousand years ago. It is not known to my honourable Friend and that is
why he made such a wrong statement – a grievously wrong statement and I
want to correct it.”
http://parliamentofindia.nic.
http://www.thehindu.com/fr/
namaskaram. kalyanaraman
EC accountable under cyber law: IT Act 2000
How can an accused become a judge?
All
parties have expressed concerns about functioning of EVMs (Ghulam Nabi
Azad about Orissa polls, Advani about Lok Sabha polls, PMK/MDMK in Tamil
Nadu etc.) EC is going through a make-believe, non-transparent
exercise. How can the accused become a judge?
EC has not explained who manufactures the chips in the EVMs
The
manufactures of the CHIPs are still not revealed by the EC, and most
probably the manufacturer of the chip would be a foreign company.
Again, this is another national security issue, where we mortgage our
credibility of our election process to a foreign company. Ultimately we
never inspect the foreign company premises too.
There are also
reports that ECIL/BEL have outsourced the making of the EVMs to private
parties thus introducing another trojan horse. EC has to confirm the
situation.
Introduction of timer device in EVMs violates secrecy of ballot
The
latest EVMs record the time of each vote. This violates the
fundamental principle of secret voting. When the polling booth agent,
notes down the time a particular voter had voted, he will be able to
find which party he voted for, if he has access to EVM vote logs. This
is a violation of constitutional rights, which can invalidate the last
loksabha election itself, since about 16% of EVMs had time details.
Use
of two types of machines — one with timer (introduced in Jan. 2009
first in Delhi Assembly polls) and another without timer device. EVMs
with timer devices are said to be about 2 lakh in number (out of a total
of about13 lakh EVMs). Thus in 16% of the constituencies or about 80
Lok Sabha constituencies the timerdevice EVMs were used rendering them
to internet frauds because timer device makes the device non-local and
directly amenable to internet crime. There is a good possibility that
the 80 constituencies selected for manipulation were in Tamilnadu,
Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, UP and Delhi. EC is accountable to provide
info. on how the timer-device EVMs were distributed and how they were
certified by manufacturers , audited by
EC, before being deployed.
Party polling agents should be allowed access to such regular system
audits to ensure transparency and accountability of EC.
The possibility of embedding wireless Feature in the Chip:
Since
the early days of electronic devices such as Read Only Memory (ROM)
chips, there have been dramatic advances including wireless
technologies.
UC SanDiego Prof writes about having been able to reverse engineer the software of
(American)
EVMs, without opening them up at all. His programming style suggest
that there have been many changes in the capability of software hackers.
The first question is how will we know, if a chip contains
wireless feature or not? It is impossible to find the architecture of
the chip, after it is manufactured. This wireless feature can be be
made passive, so that it gets activated only upon receiving a specific
signal in a specific frequency.
A simple analogy is that, our
mobile phone rings only if the call is intended for it.. All the GSM
waves are available to the mobile phone, but it activates only when a
particular signal (corresponding to its mobile number or set code) is
detected. IT rejects all other waves, even though it can read those.
In
a similar case, the wireless feature will remain passive, unless
activated by the known person. And this can be done, through satellite
from any part of the world.
Or it can be done at a distance of 200 - 300 metres outside the polling booth.. The possibility is wide here.
Failure to audit the design integrity of EVM’s and embedded software
Beep sound can NEVER be a confirmation of the vote:
The
EC claims that when a voter presses the particular party’s button,
there will be a beep sound to confirm his vote. But in practical
perspective, a beep sound confirms only the pressing of the button, but
it does not confirm whether the vote has been delivered to the
particular party.
This is just like giving our vote to a third
person, who in turns puts in to ballot box. We never know if that third
person puts our vote correctly or he changes it and puts a different
vote or he may not even deliver the vote itself.
So, direct and
secret voting itself is violated, which is available in the ballot
paper, where we know which party symbol we are marking, and we ourselves
ensure the voting by directly putting the paper in the ballot box
ourselves.
- Closed source proprietary design- If it is a mere
calculator and completely secure, why the secrecy about its design and
software, why not allow use of any EVM’s that confirm to a standard? We
do not restrict to using HP calculators and ban the use of any other
calculator for number crunching.
- EVM’s cannot work without
elaborate supervised pre and post-poll process involving observers,
agents and security paper seals. This is a huge risk and cost. Like a
calculator that cannot work unless scientists, teachers and examiners
certify that the calculator is secure and not fraudulent.
- There
is no verification of software on the EVM - no checksum or debug
programs to confirm identity and version of software - besides black-box
testing. What can distinguish an authentic EVM from an unauthentic one?
An
extraordinary statement was made by EC that from now on ECIL/BEL
(makers of EVMs) will be asked to certify the EVMs supplied by them. It
is amazing that such certification and audit by EC did not occur for the
13 lakhs + EVMs in use now and for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
Trojan Code:
Secret
Trojan code embedded right at the manufacturing stage. This trojan can
be activated, by combination of special keys known only to secret group
of people. This trojan need not know the candidate or his serial
number or his party symbol. What it needs is to know the exact button,
to which the benefeciary party belongs to, so that it can either
simulate that button press, or transfer votes from other buttons to the
beneficiary party’s button code.
This point is very important,
because the Indiresan committee report claims that the candidate serial
number is not known till two weeks of commencement of election. This is a
false claim, because, candidate serial number is only for human
reference, and all the internal workings are based on machine codes.
Even
if cadidate serial number claim is to be accepted, there should be a
mechanism to feed or map the button to the serial number, and that can
be done only by humans.. who are they?
Absence of standards for EVM data storage and retrieval
-
There are no standards and procedures for data-storage, data-retrieval,
archiving, data-transfer, data-verification. In fact the BEL and ECIL
machines are not even compatible when it comes to obtaining, storing
retrieving, archiving or transferring data. What is the standard? Why
are there no third party designs? Who are the OEMs? This is like NTSC
and PAL- only the manufacturers benefit.
- There is a manual
process for reading the votes - Why is there no print-out of the votes
recorded on the machine with the machine id? Why can the entire data not
be transfered to public website instantaneously? Why must the form 17C
and form 20 be manually filled? Why can it not be printed by the EVM?
Absence of EVM audit procedures
-
There is no standard for maintaining a transaction trail and statutory
independent audit by anyone who wishes to audit an EVM or entire
constituencies. This is like allowing pass-books to be updated without
entries in registers and without payment slips or cheque-book entries in
the registers. This is like trusting the system because it runs, not
because there is a mechanism to check for points of malfunction or
misuse.
- There is no transaction slip to the voter. For the
voter, the vote is untraceable once it is cast. This is like depositing
money without a deposit slip. It is like a bank that has no pass-book
updates or ways to check that the money is still in your account.
EC gets results on 6 May 2009 before Voting is completed (last date of polling May 13)
-
Coded “results” were available on the ECI website in the versions of
the spreadsheet CandidateAC.xls downloaded between the 6th and 11th of
May. They contained “results” for all but 47 of the 8071 candidate. If
EVM’s were secure with DEO/district collectors, and elections were not
even held in many constituencies, how was did the ECI have this data?
- Was this data not in control of the ECI? Was their site hacked? Or was data from various EVM’s uploaded in advance?
- How can the ECI distinguish between real and dummy data?
EC in violation of Supreme Court order of 19 Jan. 2009
-
The existence of the poll results data as early as May 6 (one week
before May 13 the final date of polling) contravenes the Order passed by
the Supreme Court on 19-01-2009, in writ petition ( C) No. 207 of
2004th See http://eci.nic.in/press/
below:
ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA
Nirvachan Sadan, Ashoka Road, New Delhi – 110 001
No. ECI/PN/ 23 /2009 Dated : 14th April, 2009
PRESS NOTE
Subject : Prohibition on Publication and Dissemination of Results of Opinion
polls/Exit polls.
In pursuance of the Order passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court on 19-01-2009,
in
writ petition ( C) No. 207 of 2004, the Election Commission issued
Guidelines, on 17th February, 09, to be followed in the matter of
publication/dissemination of results of opinion polls and exit polls in
connection with the current elections to the Lok Sabha and State
Legislative Assemblies. As per the guidelines, result of opinion/exit
polls carried out at any time, cannot be published, publicized or
disseminated in any manner, during the period starting from 48 hours
before the hour fixed for conclusion of poll in the first phase of
election and till the conclusion of poll in the last phase of election.
The period referred to in the guidelines starts from 3 PM today, the
14th April, 09 (as the hour fixed for conclusion of poll in some of the
constituencies in the first phase of election on 16.4.09 is 3 PM ), and
will continue till the conclusion of poll in the last ( the fifth) phase
of election.
(K.F.WILFRED) SECRETARY
Use of Genesys software by EC to consolidate vote counts
Counting of votes using Genesys software
EC
has not publicized, NOR audited the flow of information after the EVMs
have been used for the polls. There are so many places along the route
(not to mention the idea of using E-mails to collect vote totals!) where
errors can creep in. (In fact, the Genesys programme mentioned by EC
to Anupam and Nalapat has NOT been publicised. Has it been checked out
by the technical group led by Indiresan?
- If this data is
generated as test/dummy data by “Genesys” software that collects and
transfers data from districts to the ECI then:
* Why did this happen during the poll process?
* Why did the ECI not put up notice to the effect on its website?
* Why did it not react to the alert to this data sent to them on the
6th of May by NIC and Dr Anupam Saraph? Why is there no response to
date? Why is there no clarification on this?
* If the purpose of
the test is to match names with votes, why were the names coded to match
the order in which they appear on the EVM?
* If it is just meant to tally the match, why was the data changing for at least some constituencies in this period?
Votes polled by 108 winners in 2009 Lok Sabha polls tally with May 6 spreadsheet data of EC
Nalapat’s
discovery of EC working with spreadsheets on May 6 when the final count
and results were due only on May 10. Prof. SP Modak has found that 108
constituency results match with the numbers used in the spreadsheets.
This is a serious issue requiring CBI inquiry. EC cannot be allowed to
brush this under the carpet; this is comparable to a cyber crime of
fraudulent of use of ATMs of Banks. An external agency should audit the
use of Gensys software for gathering info. On counted votes from the
state Election Commission officials.
* Why do 108 winners tally with winners as per this data?
* Why do the ranks of 662 candidates match the finally declared?
* In many cases multiple ranks in the same constituency match - this is
a highly non-random event considering each of the ‘n’ candidates in a
constituency would have ‘1/n’ chance of making it to any position and p
positions matching is a low probability chance with probability
1/(n)**p.
* If previous years data is used to generate “dummy
data”, why are there only 108 matches? Also where does the data for
those who did not contest previously come from?
* Why was this data “sanitized” on the 15th of May?
* Why were the final results never uploaded onto the spreadsheet?
* Why was the link to the spreadsheet removed on the 15th of July when the media asked the ECI questions about it?
EC has not replied to the notes sent by Anupam and Nalapat
* Why has the ECI not replied to the mails and minutes of the meeting
with ECI sent to them by Dr Anupam Saraph and Prof Madhav Nalapat?
- Why does the voters and votes polled data reported by the ECI in different documents on its own website differ significantly?
EC contravenes Cyberlaws in India
SC
should direct that EC be made accountable under the Information
Technology Act 2000 since EC is using a computer/computer
network/computer resource/computer system as defined in the Act.
EVMs
are computers/computer networks/computer resource/computer system under
the definitions included in The Information Technology Act, 2000 (No.
21 Of 2000)Of India
http://www.legalserviceindia.
Amendments
have also been made to the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860) to recognize
electronic records and to the Indian Evidence Act 1872 (1 of 1872) and
Reserve Bank of India act 1934 (2 of 1934).
In the Reserve Bank
of India Act, 1934, in section 58, in sub-section (2), after clause (p),
the following clause shall be inserted, namely:-
“(pp) the
regulation of fund transfer through electronic means between the banks
or between the banks and other financial institutions referred to in
clause (c) of section 45-1, including the laying down of the conditions
subject to which banks and other financial institutions shall
participate in such fund transfers, the manner of such fund transfers
and the rights and obligations of the participants in such fund
transfers;”.
This is an Act to provide legal recognition for
transactions carried out by means of electronic data interchange and
other means of electronic communication, commonly referred to as
“electronic commerce”, which involve the use of alternatives to
paper-based methods of communication and storage of information, to
facilitate electronic filing of documents with the Government agencies
and further to amend the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Evidence Act,
1872, the Bankers’ Books Evidence Act, 1891 and the Reserve Bank of
India Act, 1934 and for matters connected therewith or incidental
thereto.
1 (2) It shall extend to the whole of India and, save
as otherwise provided in this Act, it applies also to any offence or
contravention thereunder committed outside India by any person.
2
) “computer” means any electronic magnetic, optical or other high-speed
data processing device or system which performs logical, arithmetic,
and memory functions by manipulations of electronic, magnetic or optical
impulses, and includes all input, output, processing, storage, computer
software, or communication facilities which are connected or related to
the computer in a computer system or computer network;
(j) “computer network” means the interconnection of one or more computers through—
(i) the use of satellite, microwave, terrestrial line or other communication media; and
(ii)
terminals or a complex consisting of two or more interconnected
computers whether or not the interconnection is continuously maintained;
(k) “computer resource” means computer, computer system, computer network, data,computer data base or software;
(l)
“computer system” means a device or collection of devices, including
input and output support devices and excluding calculators which are not
programmable and capable of being used in conjunction with external
files, which contain computer programmes, electronic instructions, input
data and output data, that performs logic, arithmetic, data storage and
retrieval, communication control and other functions;
The act defines in Section 2 (ze) a “secure system” means computer hardware, software, and procedure that-
(a) are reasonably secure from unauthorised access and misuse;
(b) provide a reasonable level of reliability and correct operation;
(c) are reasonably suited to performing the intended functions; and
(d) adhere to generally accepted security procedures;
Sections 65 and 66 of the IT Act 2000 prescribe penalties for tampering/hacking:
65. Tampering with computer source documents.
Whoever
knowingly or intentionally conceals, destroys or alters or
intentionally or knowingly causes another to conceal, destroy or alter
any computer source code used for a computer, computer programme,
computer system or computer network, when the computer source code is
required to be kept or maintained by law for the time being in force,
shall be punishable with imprisonment up to three years, or with fine
which may extend up to two lakh rupees, or with both.
Explanation.-
For the purposes of this section, “computer source code” means the
listing of programmes, computer commands, design and layout and
programme analysis of computer resource in any form.
66. Hacking with computer system.
(1)
Whoever with the intent to cause or knowing that he is likely to cause
wrongful loss or damage to the public or any person destroys or deletes
or alters any information residing in a computer resource or diminishes
its value or utility or affects it injuriously by any means, commits
hack:
(2) Whoever commits hacking shall be punished with
imprisonment up to three years, or with fine which may extend upto two
lakh rupees, or with both.
Procedures governing ATMs which
require printout of transaction as an audit trail for the customer
should be followed in EVM operations.
Just as an ATM produces a
receipt, EVM should produce a receipt which can be deposited in a
separate box for verification in cases of EVM malfunction/complaints.
Secrecy of the ballot will not be vitiated. The voter is free to inform
others of how he voted; there is no law prohibiting this freedom. He
should also get a copy of the EVM receipt. Even as of now, since an EVM
can accommodate only 3000 votes, secrecy of ballot has already been
violated; it will be possible to know which ward voters voted for which
candidates.
A note on cyberlaws is provided in a separate
document. Just as a Bank is accountable for preventing potential ATM
frauds, EC will have to be answerable to the possibility of crimes
committed on EVMs which are computing devices. RBI regulates the
operation of the ATMs of banks. Similar regulatory mechanism is needed
for EVMs operated by EC. Elections are high-stake democratic exercises.
Why EVM should be declared unconstitutional by SC
Voter
cannot be expected to be able to understand the systems audit
requirements for complex computing devices. Elections as a public
exercise should be simple and intelligible to the voter. This is the
’simplicity’ criterion on which German Supreme Court declared use of
EVMs unconstitutional.
Nontranparency of EC about vote counting
EC
is not transparent about the election counting procedure. See also the
episode about EC admitting the use of Genesys Software to maintain
spreadsheets of election results. This software had been used to keep
the count on May 6 itself even before the final counting date of May 16
in serious violation of all canons of propriety. EC has promised to
explain this issue to Anupam Saraph and Nalapat. Response from EC
awaited.
Dangers of erroneous counting or manipulated counting or tally of votes
The possibility of changing the values at the last minute:
All
the votes are electronically stored, most probably in a flash memory.
(Similar to pen drive). This memory should be rewritable, otherwise,
the votes cannot be entered in this memory. The EC claims only the
controlling unit is one time writable. But not the storage chip.
When there is a mechanism to read the total number of votes, cant there be a secret mechanism to alter the reading?
In the case of Chidambaram episode, the EVMs seem to have been modified somewhere in the middle.
To
give an idea on how to change the values, we can refer to digital FM
radios available now, where the frequency can be either incremented or
decremented, just using two buttons.
The focus on Election Counting Machine:
EVM’s
are NOT manually counted.. rather, they are connected to a counting
machine, which reads the bulk of EVM machines. Why can’t the counting
machine be hacked? Since the counting machine gives a consolidated
total, it would be possible to change values through the counting
machine, since what it displays tends to be the final result.
Surely,
EC has to provide a lot of answers instead of issuing Press Notes
declaring that EVMs are tamper-proof. No one buy this declaration in
this electronic, wireless age. Else, there would have been no need for
an IT Act 2000 as a cyberlaw of India.
EVM: no paper trail; CEC cites secrecy doctrine. Isn’t EC a creature of the citizens’ will?
Does
secrecy over-ride accountability of a functionary under the
constitution? EVM is a mystery wrapped in electronics which an ordinary
voter has reason to mistrust.
What is the objective of an
election? Counting peoples’ will. If the count is flawed, the democracy
is rendered meaningless by the EC.
Paper trail is needed to make the EC accountable and to audit the accuracy of the count by the machine.
k
EVMs are tamper-proof: Election Commission
STAFF WRITER 19:0 HRS IST
Mumbai,
Aug 13 (PTI) In the backdrop of allegations by certain political
parties that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) could be hacked, the
Election Commission today said EVMs were and are tamper proof.
“In
the view of the Election Commission, EVMs were and are tamper proof.
Nobody has been able to demonstrate that they can be tampered with,”
Chief Election Commissioner Naveen Chawla told reporters here.
On
the demand by some parties for paper printouts of ballots, Chawla said
“we believe a paper trail would foil the essence of democracy, which is
secrecy of individual ballot, and it would be seriously compromised.”
“The
whole purpose of democracy is that individuals’ preference must be
secret and it is the whole pillar of free, fair and transparent
election process,” he said.
https://www.ethnologue.com/
How many languages are there in the world?
That number is
constantly in flux, because we’re learning more about the world’s
languages every day. And beyond that, the languages themselves are in
flux. They’re living and dynamic, spoken by communities whose lives are
shaped by our rapidly changing world. This is a fragile time: Roughly
40% of languages are now endangered, often with less than 1,000 speakers
remaining. Meanwhile, just 23 languages account for more than half the
world’s population.
When a just
born baby is kept isolated without anyone communicating with the baby,
after a few days it will speak and human natural (Prakrit) language
known as Classical Magahi Magadhi/Classical Chandaso language/Magadhi Prakrit,Classical Hela Basa (Hela Language),Classical Pāḷi which are the same. Buddha spoke in Magadhi. All the 7111 languages and dialects are off shoot of Classical Magahi Magadhi. Hence all of them are Classical in nature (Prakrit) of Human Beings, just like all other living speices have their own naturallanguages for communication. 116 languages are translated by https://translate.google.com
06) Classical Devanagari,Classical Hindi-Devanagari- शास्त्रीय हिंदी,
08) Classical Afrikaans– Klassieke Afrikaans
09) Classical Albanian-Shqiptare klasike,
10) Classical Amharic-አንጋፋዊ አማርኛ,
11) Classical Arabic-اللغة العربية الفصحى
12) Classical Armenian-դասական հայերեն,
15) Classical Basque- Euskal klasikoa,
16) Classical Belarusian-Класічная беларуская,
17) Classical Bengali-ক্লাসিক্যাল বাংলা,
19) Classical Bulgaria- Класически българск,
21) Classical Cebuano-Klase sa Sugbo,
22) Classical Chichewa-Chikale cha Chichewa,
23) Classical Chinese (Simplified)-古典中文（简体）,
24) Classical Chinese (Traditional)-古典中文（繁體）,
25) Classical Corsican-Corsa Corsicana,
26) Classical Croatian-Klasična hrvatska,
28) Classical Danish-Klassisk dansk,Klassisk dansk,
31) Classical Esperanto-Klasika Esperanto,
32) Classical Estonian- klassikaline eesti keel,
33) Classical Filipino klassikaline filipiinlane,
34) Classical Finnish- Klassinen suomalainen,
35) Classical French- Français classique,
36) Classical Frisian- Klassike Frysk,
37) Classical Galician-Clásico galego,
38) Classical Georgian-კლასიკური ქართული,
39) Classical German- Klassisches Deutsch,
40) Classical Greek-Κλασσικά Ελληνικά,
41) Classical Gujarati-ક્લાસિકલ ગુજરાતી,
42) Classical Haitian Creole-Klasik kreyòl,
43) Classical Hausa-Hausa Hausa,
44) Classical Hawaiian-Hawaiian Hawaiian,
45) Classical Hebrew- עברית קלאסית
46) Classical Hmong- Lus Hmoob,
47) Classical Hungarian-Klasszikus magyar,
48) Classical Icelandic-Klassísk íslensku,
49) Classical Igbo,Klassískt Igbo,
50) Classical Indonesian-Bahasa Indonesia Klasik,
51) Classical Irish-Indinéisis Clasaiceach,
52) Classical Italian-Italiano classico,
53) Classical Japanese-古典的なイタリア語,
54) Classical Javanese-Klasik Jawa,
55) Classical Kannada- ಶಾಸ್ತ್ರೀಯ ಕನ್ನಡ,
56) Classical Kazakh-Классикалық қазақ,
57) Classical Khmer- ខ្មែរបុរាណ,
58) Classical Kinyarwanda
59) Classical Korean-고전 한국어,
61) Classical Kyrgyz-Классикалык Кыргыз,
62) Classical Lao-ຄລາສສິກລາວ,
63) Classical Latin-LXII) Classical Latin,
64) Classical Latvian-Klasiskā latviešu valoda,
65) Classical Lithuanian-Klasikinė lietuvių kalba,
66) Classical Luxembourgish-Klassesch Lëtzebuergesch,
67) Classical Macedonian-Класичен македонски,
68) Classical Malagasy,класичен малгашки,
69) Classical Malay-Melayu Klasik,
70) Classical Malayalam-ക്ലാസിക്കൽ മലയാളം,
71) Classical Maltese-Klassiku Malti,
72) Classical Maori-Maori Maori,
73) Classical Marathi-क्लासिकल माओरी,
74) Classical Mongolian-Сонгодог Монгол,
75) Classical Myanmar (Burmese)-Classical မြန်မာ (ဗမာ),
76) Classical Nepali-शास्त्रीय म्यांमार (बर्मा),
77) Classical Norwegian-Klassisk norsk,
80) Classical Persian-کلاسیک فارسی
81) Classical Polish-Język klasyczny polski,
82) Classical Portuguese-Português Clássico,
83) Classical Punjabi-ਕਲਾਸੀਕਲ ਪੰਜਾਬੀ,
84) Classical Romanian-Clasic românesc,
85) Classical Russian-Классический русский,
88) Classical Scots Gaelic-Gàidhlig Albannach Clasaigeach,
90) Classical Sesotho-Seserbia ea boholo-holo,
91) Classical Shona-Shona Shona,
92) Classical Sindhi,
93) Classical Sinhala-සම්භාව්ය සිංහල,
94) Classical Slovak-Klasický slovenský,
95) Classical Slovenian-Klasična slovenska,
96) Classical Somali-Soomaali qowmiyadeed,
97) Classical Spanish-Español clásico,
98) Classical Sundanese-Sunda Klasik,
99) Classical Swahili,Kiswahili cha Classical,
100) Classical Swedish-Klassisk svensk,
101) Classical Tajik-тоҷикӣ классикӣ,
105) Classical Thai-ภาษาไทยคลาสสิก,
106) Classical Turkish-Klasik Türk,
109) Classical Urdu- کلاسیکی اردو
110) Classical Uyghur,
111) Classical Uzbek-Klassik o’z,
112) Classical Vietnamese-Tiếng Việ,
113) Classical Welsh-Cymraeg Clasurol,
114) Classical Xhosa-IsiXhosa zesiXhosa,
116) Classical Yoruba-Yoruba Yoruba,
117) Classical Zulu-I-Classical Zulu