New Delhi: None of the several persons who
had claimed that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) could be
tampered with were able to prove their claim, the Election
Commission said on Saturday.
The Election Commission had procured 100 EVMs on a
random basis from ten states to allow people, including BJP
leader Kirit Somaiya and former Delhi Chief Secretary Omesh
Saigal, to hack or tamper the machines in front of experts
from BEL and ECIL.
"The outcome of the exercise is that none of the
persons, who were given the opportunity, could actually
demonstrate any tamperability of the ECI-EVMs in any of the
100 machines put on display. They either failed or chose not
to demonstrate," the EC said in a statement here tonight.
The EC had, "in an extraordinary measure", invited
those who have recently expressed doubts about reliability of
EVMs, to demonstrate the points made in their allegations from
August 3 to August 8.
Those invited included political parties, petitioners
before various courts and some individuals who had been
writing to the EC on the issue.
BJP`s Maharashtra unit vice-president Kirit Somaiya told
the EC that he was not opposed to the use of EVMs and he had
never wanted to demonstrate the tamperability of the EVMs. He,
however, made some suggestions to the Commission in line with
his earlier correspondence, the EC said.
Saigal refused to demonstrate the points earlier raised
by him, using any of the actual 100 EVMs used by the EC on
display.
"He also offered to show what he claimed as possibility
of tampering using his personal computer and a look-alike of
the ECI-EVM, that was privately manufactured. It was pointed
out to Saigal that the ECI-EVM was not at all comparable with
what he had brought. Based on this, EC officials declined to
deal with, what appeared to be an imitation machine," the
statement read.
The Commission said it has come across some comparisons
between EVMs used by it and the ones used by foreign
countries. "Such comparisons are both misplaced and misguided.
Most of the systems used in other countries are PC-based and
running on Operating Systems. Hence, they could be vulnerable
to hacking," it said.
The Commission said that it has in place elaborate
administrative measures and procedural checks-and-balances
aimed at preventing any possible misuse or procedural lapses.
Bureau Report
