Can we 100% Trust an EVM for a fair election?

The Indian General elections

The general Elections in India just got over a few days back and even though most of the results are out, there is one contentious issue that keeps coming up again and again.
The issue is that of use of EVM or the electronic voting machines and how easy or difficult it is to temper with an EVM.

The current controversy kicked a lot of dust when a report appeared in the Mid-Day newspaper which stated that a relative of the winning Shiv sena candidate Ravindra Waikar from the Mumbai North West Lok Sabha constituency in India was found to be in possession of and using a mobile phone that was connected to an EVM machine during the June 4th vote counting session.
It is interesting to note that Ravindra Waikar won the election by mere 48 votes.

According to the report a person by the name of Mangesh Pandilkar who happens to be the brother in law of the winning candidate Ravindra Waikar was in possession of a mobile phone used to unlock the EVM machine when the votes were being counted.

Apparently both Mangesh Pandilkar and the polling officer Dinesh Gaurav got booked by the Venrai police under the section 188 of the IPC (Indian Penal Code) for the offence of flouting of the ban by the poll panel which prevents a person from having a mobile phone inside the counting centres.

The view of the Election opinion

As per Vandana Suryavanshi who is the returning officer of that particular election seat the allegations are not true.
She went to the extent of saying that notices have been issued to both Mid day as well as the Marathi daily called Lokmat.
As per her statement the EVM is a stand alone system and it is not programmable and lacks the wireless communication option.

The Mumbai police stand

The Mumbai police claimed the media reports to be baseless and have said that no official gave them the information about a mobile being used to unlock EVM.

The twist in the tale

Apparently there may be some irregularities in the process as Mr. Suryavanshi has said that the phone of Dinesh Gaurav the data entry operator of the Jogeshwari assembly constituency was found in possession of an unauthorized person and action has been taken in this matter as per a PTI report.

The Politicians view in this matter

As per Mr. Rahul Gandhi the leader from the Congress party the EVM is a blackbox.
He goes to the extent of saying that

When democratic institutions are captured, the only safeguard lies in electoral processes that are transparent to the public.

EVM is currently a black box. EC must either ensure complete transparency of the machines and processes, or abolish them.

The process of running an election in a country that is as vast as India is a cumbersome exercise with multiple points of failure and it is not an easy task for the election commission.
The EVM’s have received flack and have been on the radar of suspicion time and again.

In a tweet Mr. Elon Musk had stated that

“We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high."

source

Prior to the adoption of the EVM’s the election commission was in the practice of using ballot papers. Then EVM’s emerged and were thought to be a better alternative.
It remains to be seen what would be the right fix for this challenges and how more transparency and process adherence can be implemented in the process by the election commission of India and such bodies across the world.

Elections matter as a lot of money rides on them. A fair and true election is the bet way to capture the dreams and aspirations of the people and turn them into reality by bringing the right people into power who can truly take the country forward.

In the end the technology can do only so much and it is the human behind the tech who drives it for a common good to to serve the purpose of an individual or a set of individuals.

Cover image source1, source2

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