In one of the famous parables, “The Sky is Falling”, a chicken mistakes the thud of a falling acorn to be the ominous sound of falling sky. The clever fox immediately sees it as an opportunity and helps whip up public hysteria and happily devours a few scared animals that had sought shelter in his den. You are not alone if you see an uncanny resemblance between the story and the fear mongering created primarily by usual leftist suspects and luddites regarding EVMs. Charlatans, alarmists and scaremongers often have one thing in common; they thrive on the public’s inability to sift through information and propaganda.
Therefore it is extremely crucial to put complete information in the public domain to help voters make up their minds on the authenticity of allegations leveled against EVMs whenever opposition parties lose an election.
History of EVMs in India
The idea of using EVMs for elections in India is not new and is almost 50 years old. EVMs were conceived in India during Janata Party rule between 1977-79. They were piloted during Indira Gandhi’s tenure at an election in Parur assembly constituency in Kerala on 19th May 1982 under an initiative taken by the Election Commission of India. Indira Gandhi’s government was against it and it led to a case in the Supreme Court. The court gave a resounding judgement in favour of ECI and even asked the government to bring in a legislative act to enable widespread use of EVMs.
A few years later, Rajiv Gandhi government amended Representation of the People Act 1951 adding Section 61A in December 1988 empowering the ECI to use EVMs for general elections. The amendment came into force on 15th March, 1989. Congress supporters often applaud PM Rajiv Gandhi for bringing computers to India. I wonder then why they don’t celebrate the introduction of EVMs by his government. The first parliamentary election that was conducted using EVMs was in 2004 which the incumbent BJP government lost unexpectedly. If the EVMs were rigged, then the Vajpayee government surely did a very poor job of rigging them.
In case you are tempted to believe that the older EVMs were safe and the newer ones hackable, I would like to stop your train of thought right there. EVMs used in India have gone through three generations of design changes: M1 EVMs (from 2001 to 2006), M2 EVMs (2006 to 2013) and M3 EVMs (from 2013 onwards). M3 EVMs were conceived by state owned BEL (Bharat Electronics Limited) during the tenure of PM Manmohan Singh in 2013. If there is a flaw in the design of M3 EVMs then that brings the role of UPA 2 government into question. Of course I don’t need to mention that Congress and other opposition parties like AAP, TMC , LDF have won multiple elections using the same EVMs, making the allegations against EVMs a little like Schroedinger’s cat – hackable and non hackable at the same time. Unsurprisingly, the opposition never questions EVMs after any resounding electoral victory.
How the simplicity behind EVM design makes it safe from hackers
Our country is prone to hacking like how the anti corruption movement in 2011 was hijacked by Arvind Kerjriwal. We have seen sophisticated attempts from Money Heist to Jamtara in pop culture. So it is natural that some people have healthy skepticism regarding anything electronic/ digital. The genius of EVMs lies in its simplicity. The “micro-processor” chips used in laptops and phones allow you to download any new program/app and use the gadget for any purpose – from trolling people on social media to listening to music to doing anything productive. These are powerful chips made using the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes. They run at incredibly fast speed and come with an ecosystem to store large programs and data files.
On the other hand, “embedded” devices like refrigerators, A/Cs, water purifiers, washing machines contain “micro-controller” chips that run a fixed program. Most of these chips don’t need to use the most cutting edge semiconductor manufacturing technology either. Microprocessor chips are produced by the likes of Intel, AMD and Qualcomm while micro-controller chips are made by an entirely different set of companies like NXP, Microchip etc. What sets these two sets of chips apart is the type of memory used. Some memories like RAM (Random Access Memory) are volatile in nature (they lose their content when switched off), while others like Flash (think of your pen drive) don’t lose content when powered off.
Microprocessors use a variety of volatile and non volatile memories since they need to allow users to download new programs. On the other hand, micro-controllers such as those used in our EVMs rely on ROM (read only memory) that can be programmed just once. These are also called OTP (One Time Programmable) memories. They are programmed by blowing up tiny micro fuses inside these ROM chips by passing a high current. It is an irreversible physical process. Long story short, once you program these chips for a particular program, it cannot be undone. Not to mention that these chips typically contain small memory and hence can only execute basic functionalities like counting votes.
The way EVMs are programmed make them totally immune to hacking
Since India doesn’t have meaningful semiconductor manufacturing right now, these micro-controller chips are imported from foreign companies, mainly from the US and Japan. Can rogue agents hack these chips before they are deployed? Well firstly, BEL doesn’t use any customised “chip”, it uses standard off the shelf micro-controller chips sourced from multiple vendors. Secondly, the source code (or the program) that is “fused/burnt” inside OTP memory of these chips is written by BEL engineers. This program is the same for all the EVMs used across India and EVMs themselves are randomised and used across different booths and constituencies. This “ROM” code is given as a binary file to device makers to burn it in the OTP memory. BEL then verifies the integrity of the burnt source code by using a special error checking code called “checksum/CRC” that catches both manufacturing defects as well as malicious attempts.
EVM machines have no access to the outside world.They don’t contain electronic circuits for connecting to WI-FI, bluetooth or even radio frequency devices. So how would you hack the EVMs? The only wired access that the Ballot Unit of EVMs has is with the Control Unit manned by the officer on duty. It can only inhibit the EVM from recording the vote till the voter is ready (remember the green and red lights seen on EVM panel?). In case you are tempted to think that a rogue/ corrupt presiding officer can suppress votes from getting recorded, you need to be reminded of the VVPAT unit of EVMs. Once a voter casts a vote, VVPAT prints a tiny slip of paper using the thermal paper confirming his choice.
As mentioned earlier, EVMs use the same program in all booths and constituencies. So even if I manage to slip in malicious source code inside EVM how would it always favour party “X”. The candidates are listed based on alphabetic order on the EVM panel. Party “X”’s candidates can be at number 4 in one constituency as against say number 8 in another one. It is not possible to make the malicious source code consistently benefit one party. Secondly, even if this was somehow made possible, election commission officers conduct a mock poll on the day of polling in front of representatives of all parties in every booth. Only when all party representatives are satisfied and sign the paper, the presiding officer resets the machine and seals the “reset” button. At the end of the poll, in front of all party representatives , machines are again sealed before being transported. These human measures complement the technical checks that are part of EVMs.
EVMs are safe, rest is just propaganda
Given the vast set of checks and balances built into the system, you can safely conclude that elections using EVMs cannot be rigged in India. Is our system perfect? No. It is not. The most glaring loophole is that EVMs can only accommodate 16 candidates per panel and only 4 EVM machines can be put in series to accommodate a maximum of 64 candidates. In case there are more than 64 candidates, ECI is forced to use ballot votes. Has that been exploited by political parties? Yes. In 2019, there were 185 candidates in fray in Nizamabad constituency forcing ECI to use ballot papers. If there is such a simple way to enforce use of ballot papers why don’t the opposition parties put up dummy candidates? The reason is that they know EVMs are not hacked, voters are exercising newer options. Merely using ballot papers will not guarantee their return to power. It is just propaganda to create doubts in the minds of external / global agencies on the authenticity of elections.
Many migrant workers are not able to participate in the voting process due to travel involved. ECI had proposed a new EVM called RVM (Remote Voting Machine) to enable this process. However Congress and 15 other parties have opposed this proposal despite a convincing demonstration of RVM by ECI.
Did the Fox in the parable of “The Sky of Falling” want its victims to know that the sky is not falling ? Of course not. EVMs are not getting hacked. Only the political discourse around EVM hacking is truly hacked. Go out and vote fearlessly, the sky is not falling.
