With the General Election 2024 being only months away the
media wars are heating up around manipulation’ of results in favour of
‘powerful’ and/or those in power.
*The ‘tool’, at the centre of this cacophony is the
Electronic Voting Machines, and the processes surrounding the voting,
maintaining the integrity of the processes of collating, counting, tallying and
declaring the results.
*The din serves a useful purpose of keeping all concerned on
their toes.
*In 2019 general elections ECI reported a mismatch of votes
polled and counted in a whopping 373 seats ~69% of the seats for which
elections were held: There were surplus votes in 220 Seat while 153 seats
reported a deficit. There are 6 seats where the
discrepancy in votes is higher than the winning margin. A suspicion of ‘manipulation’ is therefore valid
as there is no satisfactory explanation for these ‘result changing’ aberrations
available in the public domain.
*The demand for return to “Paper Ballots’ is a non sequitur.
Even those proposing it know it. Booth capturing/mass rigging by miscreants to
intimidating the polling personnel and stamping the Ballot papers on particular
symbol and escaping in a matter of minutes, is surely prevented by the use of
EVMs.
*Thiru TN Seshan exerted all the Constitutional Powers of a
CEC to the hilt- no-holds barred to control the animal spirits of the
contenders for political power. His management of election processes on this
vast sub-continent left behind many robust SoPs for conducting elections.
*The ‘hacking’ charge is easily dismissed since all three
components of the EVM --‘Ballot Unit (BU), the VVPAT and Control Unit (CU) are
fully isolated once placed in the polling booth: There is no internet, wi-fi or
blue tooth access. Both ECIL and BEL the manufactures and indeed the Prof A.G.
Rao and Prof Ravi Poovaiah of IIT Bombay, who designed the system must have
used ‘hacking’ to ensure a “fit for use’ EVM.
*The Election Commission of India supervised and managed the
“1952 polls that had 173 million electors, who walked up to the presiding
officers sitting under a tree, and cast their vote in unprotected polling
stations.
*Cut to 2019, the Election Commission issued ‘tamper proof’
‘voter ID cards’ to 911.9 million electors. The voter turnout being 67.4 per
cent, 614 million votes were cast.
*Padma Bhushan Sukumar Sen, our first CEC, supervised the
1952 general elections, that had only 1,874 candidates from 53 parties
contesting in 401 constituencies. It required 1.96 lakh polling booths.
*CEC Sunil Arora supervised the fractious 2019 general
elections that featured 8,054 candidates from 673 parties in 543 constituencies
with 10.37 lakh polling booths. He lamented that EVMs were being treated like a
"football" by parties suffering electoral losses. "It is not
possible to manipulate EVMs. But technical snags are possible as in case of any
other device, but are promptly fixed”. (Eco Times – Mar 1st 2024 -PTI)
*These numbers compare favourably with the combined population
of USA plus the 27 countries of European Union: And have earned the epithet of
“The Gold Standard” for the Indian Electoral Processes in the democratic world.
Former CEC Nasim Zaidi asserted that “the ECI enjoys trust and confidence of
people …. for delivering regular, periodic, credible and acceptable elections
every time and on time since 1952". (Eco Times – Feb 2024)
*The EVMs were improved over 22 years before its full
deployment in 2004 general election, with model called 'M1 EVMs'. A 'M2 EVMs'
was used between 2006 to 2010. The latest generation of EVMs, produced since
2013, are known as 'M3 EVMs', incorporating the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit
Trail (VVPAT) machines, pursuant to Supreme Court orders.
*The model obsolescence and expected wear and tear and
service life explains the difference between the produced numbers and the stock
with Election Commission. The ECI junked 9,30,430 EVMs purchased before 2006 as
the older machines are nearing their 15-year life cycle.
(HT -2nd
Apil 2017).
*In 2024 General Election, due in April-May, EC estimates
that 11.8 Lakh polling stations will be established requiring 30.78 lakh EVMs. (ET – 28th Dec 2023)
*There is no proof that EVMs have been manipulated in any of
the past elections. However, concerned people claim that the risks are there.
*Madhav Deshmukh, an IT Expert, explains that since the ‘vote’
flows thru the VVPAT unit to the ‘Control Unit” it may be fudged. Even if the
‘correct’ ‘chunav chinh’ appears in the VVPAT window for 7 seconds, the VVPAT
may send another to the Control Unit (CU).
*Given that it is Voter’
constitutional right to put her ballot in the box: the VVPAT devise should be
connected in parallel, enabling the voter to transmit her vote directly to the
Control Unit, after ‘verification’.
*There are doubts expressed about the robustness of processes
pairing the BU and CU; the opening and closing of the polling day; the
transport of EVMs to the Counting Stations, security and integrity of counting
processes. (Remember: There are 6 seats where the discrepancy in votes
is higher than the winning margin-2019 GE).
*It is axiomatic that errors, random or manipulated occur at
“Process Interfaces”. A few technical and process fixes will assuage the
‘doubters’ and even help control mischievous intents, improve efficiencies and
cut costs.
Process 1: Before
actual poll, Mock-poll is conducted in the polling station in the presence of
polling agents of the contesting candidates, ensuring that the BU press
registers correctly in the Control Unit. After Mock-poll, data of mock poll is
cleared and Result section is sealed with green paper seal, tags & thread.
A Technical Fix: Replace the ‘green paper seal, tags and
thread’ with or add a ‘bank locker’ type locking system.
Process 2: The
polling officer presses “ballot button’ on CU and the ‘green light’ on BU glows,
indicating that the Voter may cast her vote. Once s/he casts her vote, the ‘Red
Candidate lamp’ lights up.
2b: And the VVPAT
window shows the Symbol for 7 seconds and prints a paper slip; and the Vote is
sent from the VVPAT unit to and is registered in the Control Unit. A count of
VVPAT slips from 5% of the polling stations during the counting process is
supposed to certify the integrity of Election Results. There is demand for 100%
counting of Paper Slips, adding enormous time and costs to the process.
A Technical Fix: Let’s
hand over the ‘confirmation’ to the voter herself, i) Add two switches, “GREEN- OK”
at the bottom of BU and “RED- Not OK’ on
top of the BU, ii) Convert the VVPAT to only a “Vote Verification Unit” – VVU –
eliminate printer and paper, and iii) Connect the VVU only to BU – remove its
connection to CU.
Process Fix: The
Voter, if s/he sees the correct symbol in the VVU, presses the “Green -OK’
button. This action alone sends the Vote to and is registered in the CU. And
the VVU window closes.
*The “VVU” will not cost more than ₹500, saving ₹15,500, by
eliminating the expensive printer and paper rolls; halving the cost of EVM Unit.
There would be enormous saving of time and money at the counting stage as well.
If s/he presses the “Red-Not OK’ switch her first vote is
‘deleted’ and s/he may rectify her vote.
Process 3: After completion of poll, EVMs are escorted back
to strong room and the Polled EVMs are stored under 24 X 7 security.
A Fix: BEL and ECIL may
create a WORM (Write Once, Read Many) flash drive where the entered content
cannot be deleted, formatted, erased, altered or manipulated.
*Candidates buy and provide WORM USBs to each of their
Authorised Polling Agents, who register with the Presiding Officer of the
Polling station.
*At the end of Poling day, the Polling agents are allowed to
download voting data from the CUs on to their WORM USB. This will enable each Candidate
to confirm the “result” declared by the ECI, after compiling the raw data from
their own Poling Agents.
*The Candidates will have raw data for analysing and help
develop their electoral strategy in future (Reduce the power of large parties)
*And the concerns around ‘pairing of BU & CU, Tracking
of EVMs etc are alleviated and sources of variation/errors in the results
reduced if not fully eliminated.
*A few pre-poll steps may also be rationalised to improve
efficiencies: And the ECI may develop algorithms defining variation limits
within which the Results can be declared and/or repoll ordered.
*Transparency built thru the above ‘fixes will improve the
‘health of election processes which is but one of steps to ensure a healthy
democracy. The purpose however is to elect 542 People’ Representatives to
represent “we the people’ in Lok Sabha: A body that is central to the
functioning of the Indian State.
*The ‘dance of democracy’ played out on daily basis shows
that our PRs are whipped and corralled into just being a ‘number’ that leaves
her brains and souls on those steps to the Sabha, where the great leader
touched his forehead.
*After eight years of work, the book, “Factory Resets of Governance Rules” -Democracy FOR the People, lays out a set of
‘implementation prescriptions’ – a ‘business plan’ that uses ‘Good Governance
Practices’ based on the spirit of our Constitution: More specifically, the
Preamble to the Constitution.
*The Chapter 4 – The People’
Representatives, sets out the structure, systems, processes (in
about 15 pages) such that each candidate may spend under one crore for her election, loosening the hold
of pressure groups and lobbyists. S/he is also generously incentivised to act conscientiously
on behalf of her constituents.
*Incidentally, Mizoram uses one of the “Resets” to election process- hopefully effectively.
