Soon after the election results, BSP supremo Mayawati claimed that the electronic voting machines (EVMs) used during the polls were tampered with and that the Election Commission should launch an investigation.
While many snubbed Mayawati’s claims as her refusal to accept her defeat, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has become the latest to cry foul over EVMs. In a press conference on Wednesday, Kejriwal alleged that 20-25% votes of AAP were transferred to Congress because of faulty EVMs.
However, the election commission has maintained that EVM tampering is not possible. In a detailed statement on March 11, soon after Mayawati’s allegations, ECI gave these reasons in the defense of EVMs. (Read full text here)
Here are some reasons based on which EC says EVMs cannot be tampered with (text reproduced by ScoopWhoop in simpler words):
- Before every election, a first level checking (FLC) is done for every EVM to be used in the election by the engineers of the manufacturers in the presence of political parties’ representatives. Any malfunctioning EVM is kept separately and is not used in the election.
- Manufacturers certify at the time of FLC that all components in the EVM are original. After this, the plastic cabinet of Control Unit of the EVM is sealed using a “Pink Paper Seal”, which is signed by representatives of political parties. After this, the plastic cabinet of control unit of the EVMs cannot be opened and there is no access to any component of inside of EVMs.
- At the time of FLC, at least 1000 votes are cast by the representatives on 5% of EVMs randomly selected by them. A printout of the results of mock poll are shown to the representatives of political parties.
- Candidates and their representatives are allowed to conduct mock polls on EVMs at the time of candidate setting and also before the actual poll on the poll day to satisfy themselves about the satisfactory functioning of EVMs being used.
- Once the candidate setting is done the Ballot Unit of the EVM is also sealed with thread/Pink Paper seals so that nobody has access to the inside of the Ballot Unit too.
- On the poll day, a mock poll by casting at least 50 votes is conducted at every polling stations in the presence of the representatives of the candidates/polling agents with their signature and a certificate to that effect is obtained from every Presiding officer.
- After the mock drill is over, another thread seal and green paper seals are put on the EVM to block access to all buttons except those which are used for the conduct of poll. The Presiding officer then closes the EVM machines and no votes can then be cast into it. The EVMs are then sealed.
- The rooms where EVMs are stored pending for counting are also sealed and watched round the clock. The candidates and their representatives are allowed to put their own seals on the rooms.
Importantly, representatives of political parties are given the chance to participate in all the processes related to EVMs.
After stating the procedure, EC said that it assures that EVMs are tamper-proof and cannot be manipulated with and the aforementioned procedures have been carried out in the 5 states.
(Feature image source: Reuters)