Joining
the controversy regarding the reliablity of Electronic Voting Machines
(EVMs) which have been questioned by political parties, the RSS today
asked the Election Commission (EC) to revert back to tried and tested
paper ballots and subject EVMs to public scrutiny whether these gadgets
are tamper proof. In an editorial titled ‘Can we trust our EVMs?’, The
Organiser, the RSS mouthpiece, noted it was a fact that till date an
absolutely tamper-proof machine had not been invented and credibility of
any system depends on ‘transparency, verifiability and trustworthiness’
than on blind and atavistic faith in its infallibility. The issue is
not a ‘private affair’ and it involves the future of India. Even if the
EVMs were genuine, there was no reason for the EC to be touchy about it,
the paper commented. The Government and the EC can’t impose EVMs as a
fait accompli on Indian democracy as the only option before the voter.
There were flaws like booth capturing, rigging, bogus voting, tampering
and ballot paper snatching in the ballot paper system of polling leading
the country to switch over to the EVMs and all these problems were
relevant in EVMs too. Rigging was possible even at the counting stage.
What made the ballot papers voter-friendly was that all aberrations were
taking place before the public eye and hence open for corrections
whereas the manipulations in the EVMs is entirely in the hands of powers
that be and the political appointees manning the sytem, the paper
commented. The EVM has only one advantage — ’speed’ but that advantage
has been undermined by the staggered polls at times spread over three to
four months. ‘’This has already killed the fun of the election
process,'’ the paper noted. Of the dozen General Elections held in the
country, only two were through the EVMs and instead of rationally
addressing the doubts aired by reputed institutions and experts the
Government has resorted to silence its critics by ‘intimidation and
arrests on false charges’, the paper observed, recalling the arrest of
Hyederabad-based technocrat Hari Prasad by the Mumbai Police. Prasad’s
research has proved that the EVMs were ‘vulnerable to fraud’. The
authorities want to send a message that anybody who challenges the EC
runs the risk of persecution and harassment, the RSS observed. Most
countries around the world looked at the EVMs with suspicion and
countries like the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Ireland had all
reverted back to paper ballots shunning EVMs because they were ‘easy to
falsify, risked eavesdropping and lacked transparency’. Democracy is too
precious to be handed over to whims or an opaque establishment and
network of unsafe gizmos. ‘’For the health of Indian democracy it is
better to return to tried and tested methods or else elections in future
can turn out to be a farce,'’ the editorial said.

– (UNI) — 28DI28.xml