Anti-EVM group demands return to ballot paper system of voting

An anti-EVM group headed by Congress leader Udit Raj on Tuesday claimed the present electronic voting machine system was not end-to-end verifiable, making it ”unfit” for democratic elections, and demanded a return to the ballot paper method.

Raj, a spokesperson and national convenor of ‘EVM Hatao Morcha’, said the Congress and the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) have been trying to meet the Election Commission but were unsuccessful.

A protest will be launched on February 22 against using EVMs for voting, he said. The ‘EVM Hatao Morcha’ is a common platform of NGOs, the INDIA bloc parties, social organisations, intellectuals and citizens of the country. ”Public trust in EVMs has never been lower than it is today. This is because EVMs are ‘black boxes’ and voting through these machines does not comply with the essential democratic principles which stipulate that each voter has the knowledge and capacity to verify that his or her vote is cast-as-intended, recorded-as-cast and counted-as-recorded,” Raj said at a press conference at the Press Club of India here.

The design and implementation of EVMs as well as the results of both software and hardware verifications are not public and open to independent review, he claimed. ”VVPAT system does not allow the voter to verify the slip… Due to the absence of end-to-end verifiability, the present EVM system is not verifiable and therefore by its very design itself is unfit for democratic elections,” he said.

As against total transparency under the paper-ballot system, there is total ”opaqueness” in the EVM-VVPAT voting system, Raj alleged, adding, ”It is imperative therefore that India returns to paper ballot.” Raj said all these issues have been repeatedly brought to the notice of the Election Commission of India in the last over five years but the panel has ”confined” itself to the Nirvachan Sadan and is ”busy promoting EVMs through roadshows and lengthy FAQs”.