The Election Commission of India(ECI) on Saturday May 20,2017 invited the recognised political parties to an “Electronic Voting (EVM) Challenge” beginning June 3 to demonstrate that the machine can be, or were, during the five recent Assembly elections, tampered with. Only Indian experts are allowed to participate in the event.
The challenge will be open for four to five days, for the political parties that had participated in the Assembly elections in Goa, Punjab, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. An independent team of experts will supervise the proceedings that will be video-recorded.
Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi said the political parties, each of which can nominate three experts, had to confirm their participation by 5 p.m. on May 26. Each party will be assigned four EVMs of their choice, picked up from the EC warehouses in any Assembly constituency
They can also accompany the EVMs from warehouses to the venue at the EC headquarters, at their own cost.
Although the parties’ experts will be allowed to open and inspect the machine, they will not be allowed to tweak its components, as the EC said changing the internal circuit was like changing the whole device itself.
Seeking to dispel the doubts about Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) security, the Election Commission on Saturday reiterated that the device being a stand-alone machine could not be hacked and that it was far superior to those manufactured abroad.
Indian manufacturers have supplied EVMs to Namibia, Nepal and Bhutan. Several other countries, including Australia, Russia, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Bulgaria, have also shown interest in the product, the EC said.
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