1) Indian EVMs can not be hacked by any hacker in the world for the simple reason that Indian EVMs are not connected to the internet unlike other countries.
2) The BBC reported earlier that an American had hacked Indian Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), which is not true. The American opened an EVM, changed some components, and hacked the new components he had put in the machine. He did not hack the original Indian machine. Just imagine, for anyone to access hundreds of thousands of EVMs in India, break open the seals and replace components on a massive scale needed for rigging elections is next to impossible as all the machines are guarded by not only the troops but also by the representatives of all political parties.
3) Some reports suggested that the EVM was being programmed at the manufacturing stage to record all votes in favour of only one candidate , say the candidate on Button A. So is it possible that even if 1000 voters press Buttons B, C, D or E, 100 votes for candidates against each of the other buttons gets transferred to the candidate listed against Button A?
This is simply hilarious. A key factor preventing the transfer of votes from one button to another is that nobody is aware about what order the candidates or parties will be listed on the EVM until after the last date of withdrawing nomination papers.
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That means the order of buttons is known for about only two weeks – far too little time to manipulate the machines. Furthermore, specific EVMs are assigned to constituencies in a randomized manner and that too pretty late in the day, and in the presence of representatives of all parties. So if you think your party will be Button A – and somehow, you get the votes of other buttons transferred to Button A, the Election Commission could end up listing another candidate against Button A and you would end up helping your competitor.
4) On the other hand, ballot paper-based voting is much more prone to manipulation. In the days of ballot papers, a party used to capture polling booths and stamp all the ballot papers in their favour. The estimated amount of false voting using ballot papers was 5, which, in a state like UP, is a huge 3.5 million false votes. Accompanied by all kinds of threats and violence associated with booth capturing, there is no doubt in saying that voting by ballot papers is subject to much more ‘hacking’ and manipulation than EVMs.
5) The technology, the design and the thought process behind India’s EVMs are admired across the world. Many election experts have visited and tested our EVMs. We should be proud of India’s EVMs instead of falsely using them as a scapegoat when a party loses an election
Finally – the Election Commission has devised our EVMs with a paper trail. Manufacturing has already begun. This in our opinion is not a necessary step – it merely is needed to assuage the suspicious minds of an older generation who are not used to the new Digital India and the digital world.
When you press the button for the party of your choice, the party name and symbol is printed and the paper is visible through a window in the machine. The paper then falls into a sealed cabinet at the bottom of the machine. This cabinet collects all the printed papers and is only opened when the counting process begins. And printouts could be used in case of disputes.