New Delhi: AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj on Tuesday claimed to have “proved” in the Delhi Assembly that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) can be tampered with but the Election Commission of India has already asserted that the machines are fool-proof. These are the reasons mentioned by the poll panel:
— The machine is electronically protected to prevent any tampering/manipulation
— The program (software) used in these machines is burnt into a one-time programmable (OTP)/masked chip so that it cannot be altered or tampered with
— These machines are not networked either by wire or by wireless to any other machine or system. Therefore, there is no possibility of its data corruption
— The software of EVMs is developed in-house by a selected group of engineers in BEL (Defence Ministry PSU) and ECIL (Atomic Energy Ministry’s PSU) independently from each other
— A select software development group of 2-3 engineers designs the source code and this work is not sub-contracted
— After completion of software design, testing and evaluation of the software is carried out by an independent testing group as per the software requirements specifications (SRS). This ensures that the software has really been written as per the requirements laid down for its intended use only
Tough code to crack
— After successful completion of such evaluation, machine code of the source program code is given to the micro controller manufacturer for writing in the microcontrollers
— From this machine code, the source code cannot be read. Source code is never handed over to anyone outside the software group of PSUs
— The source code for the EVM is stored under controlled conditions at all times. Checks and balances are in place to ensure that it is accessible to authorised personnel only
Quality check
— During production in the factory, functional testing is done by production group as per the laid down quality plan and performance test procedures
— The software is so designed that it allows a voter to cast the vote only once. The vote can be recorded by an elector from the ballot unit only after the presiding officer enables the ballot on the control unit
— The machine does not receive any signal from outside at any time. The next vote can be recorded only after the presiding officer enables the ballot on the control unit. In between, the machine becomes dead to any signal from outside (except from the control unit)
— Certain additional features were introduced in 2006 in ECI-EVMs such as dynamic coding between ballot unit (BU) and control unit (CU), installation of real time clock, installation of full display system and date and time stamping of every key-pressing in EVM
— Technical evaluation committee in 2006 has concluded that any tampering of CU by coded signals by wireless or outside or Bluetooth or Wi-Fi is ruled out as cu does not have high frequency receiver and data decoder
— CU accepts only specially encrypted and dynamically coded data from BU. Data from any outside source cannot be accepted by CU
Why ECI-EVMs Are Unique
- ECI- EVMs are stand alone machines. Therefore, they cannot be compared with machines of other countries.
- Most of the systems used in other countries are computer based with internet connectivity. Hence, they could be vulnerable to hacking
- The software in the ECI-EVM chip is one time programmable (OTP) and burnt into the chip at the time of manufacture. Nothing can be written on the chip after manufacture
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