Opinion | How EVMs Have Evolved Despite Controversies

Another election, another round of suspicion and allegations on the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). The voting machine has always been mired in controversies, with debates heating up around the time of elections. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has repeatedly defended EVMs as non-tamperable, citing technological measures and strict administrative and security measures taken by the poll body.

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Unfortunately, S. Rangarajan, the man who designed the EVM, is no longer here to defend the device that has drastically reduced the time taken to count votes. However, he was more popularly known as 'writer Sujatha' - among the most prolific writers in Tamil - who wrote thrillers, science fiction, human drama, critiques on Tamil classics, and explained science and technology. He also wrote screenplays that went on to become hugely successful. If alive, he would have turned 89 on May 3 this year. He passed away on February 27, 2008.

A History Of The Machine

Rangarajan was an electronic engineer at Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), where he led the team that designed such machines. After their experimental use in 1989, followed by other successful exercises during elections, about one million EVMs were deployed in the 2004 elections.

In 1977, S.L. Shakdhar, the then Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), during a tour to Hyderabad, requested the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) to study the possibility of using an electronic device for conducting elections, writes Anil Maheshwari and Vipul Maheshwari in The Power of the Ballot: Travail and Triumph in the Elections. In 1979, a prototype was developed, and its operation was demonstrated by the Election Commission of India (ECI) before the representatives of political parties in August 1980, they add.

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Meanwhile, BEL, a Defence Ministry PSU, had also developed a microcomputer-based voting equipment, which they had used for the elections for the various unions of the company, say the authors. In January 1981, BEL approached the ECI for a contract for manufacturing EVMs, and on July 29, 1981, the ECI held a meeting with the representatives of BEL, ECIL, the Ministry of Law, and the CEOs of some states regarding the use of EVMs in elections.

The VVPAT 

But since its introduction, some parties have raised doubts over the possibility of EVMs malfunctioning or being tampered with to register votes in favour of a particular candidate or party. Even the introduction of the Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) has not been able to satisfy complainers.
Incidentally, a VVPAT machine is attached to the main EVM, which, as soon as a button is pressed, prints out a piece of paper with the voter's choice. The printed slip is visible for seven seconds. These slips are used later by officials to verify the votes cast in randomly selected polling booths.

It was with the very idea of introducing more transparency into the election process that the concept of VVPAT was proposed in 2010. Following discussions with political parties and others, the idea was referred to the ECI's Technical Expert Committee. Finally, VVPAT machines were attached to EVMs and trials were conducted in some constituencies during the 2013 assembly elections. Following that, the ECI decided to introduce VVPATs in a phased manner, and in the 2019 General Elections, all EVMs were used with VVPAT machines.

What Ex-Poll Commissioners Have Said About EVMs

"Let me point out two things. Firstly, it was precisely to remove doubts regarding the EVMs that VVPAT machines were introduced - to provide voters with a means to verify that their vote was cast correctly and for the audit of stored electronic results. Using these machines, voters can review a physical ballot to confirm their electronic vote. Secondly, it was the VVPAT machines that malfunctioned in the recent by-polls, and not the EVMs," writes former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi in the book India's Experiment With Democracy: The Life of a Nation Through Its Elections.

The chronology of events - from the seed of an idea to its development to the widespread use of EVMs - shows that the process progressed through several Union governments. Yet, the same leaders who may have raised objections over polling through EVMs have been content while in office.

Quraishi has observed in his book, "The issue of 'tamperability' of EVMs has been doing the rounds ever since they were first introduced. Every time a political party loses an election, it blames the machine. However, none of them has been able to prove their allegations against the credibility of EVMs, and neither do they apologise when they win the elections where the same EVMs have been used."

Rangarajan's Defence

Strong words indeed. Doubts, then aspersions, were directed at EVMs - over their accuracy and security - since these were used experimentally. In fact, there was a time when Rangarajan took to writing in defence of his creation in terms of the machines being secure and tamper-proof. He had even been quoted saying that EVM was one invention that made him as proud as did his writings.

Yet, just a year after his demise, EVMs were back in the news, again for the wrong reasons. Former CEC Navin Chawla, in his book Every Vote Counts: The Story of India's Elections, remembers from his own experience, "The EVM continues to be buffeted in stormy seas. A concerted attack emerged in 2009..."

And the next year, Hari Prasad, an engineer, in collaboration with American computer scientist J. Alex Halderman and Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp, claimed to have shown ways of tampering with EVMs. However, Prasad was unable to justify how he was able to acquire a real EVM. He was subsequently arrested on charges of theft of the machine allegedly from a customs house in Mumbai, where it was stored.

Incidentally, about two dozen countries have EVMs or a similar system of voting today.

The ECI has its views on "EVM detractors", posted on its website: "Self-appointed technical experts and certain social media personnel have repeatedly failed to realise that the EVMs cannot be compared to a computer, which runs on an operating system. The microcontrollers of EVMs and VVPATs run on a specific program designed to faithfully record the voters' choice. That the EVM is a truthful machine has been proved over decades of usage through changes in several governments at the state and central level, whenever the public wanted to. In fact, the EVM has made elections safe and virtually eradicated booth capturing by limiting the rate of vote casting to four votes a minute and thus significantly increasing the time required for stuffing false votes."

(Jayanta Bhattacharya is a senior journalist writing on polls and politics, conflict, farmer and human interest issues)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author