Re: [IAC#RG] Fwd: Dr. Swamy petition on EVMs in Supreme Court

I have seen these conspiracy theories before, but I am compelled to comment here - given the otherwise seriousness of this group.

First, I support the creation of a paper trail, if that is feasible for the current EVMs - the paper trail has to identify the party/candidate voted for and not the number pressed - so that if there is a dispute, the audit trail can be used.

While we talk about paper ballots, we seem to have forgotten the mass scale booth capture and stuffing that used to go on before the EVMs.

Now, moving on to the EVMs - I am unable to understand how they can be manipulated at a large enough (statistically significant) level, given the current EVMs and the way they are operated, unless we are alleging a mass conspiracy of national and state level EC officers, workers and their reps?

Consider:

1. The EVM is essentially a sealed box, which has 16 buttons - these buttons do nothing but act as adding machines - every time you press one, the count increases by one.  This is a simplistic description, but essentially that is all it is - a box of 16 counters.

2. The hardware is directly embedded in the chip in the machine - the machine has no external ports to the best of my knowledge. So to hack the software or make it do different things from intended, you need to physically open up the machine, connect another box to the port on the board itself and then do your stuff. Hence, you need physical access to these machines to manipulate them, assuming that one can indeed manipulate a sealed hardware chip code (similar to the bios on your PC - have your ever tried updating that or flushing it?)

3. Even assuming that you get physical access to the machines, and program in a code that says every 4th vote will get transferred to the 5th counter - how do you ensure that the 5th counter represents your candidate or party? These "blank"+ boxes are dispatched from central locations to various booths. In each constituency, local officials "insert" the paper that "matches" a candidate to a particular button. Is this information centrally available? With whom? Can you get this information?

And, given the essentially random nature (based on my observations at polling booths) by which the top parties are allocated to the buttons, how do you ensure that your hacked box goes to the correct constituency? See the problem? Mass conspiracy and stupendous logistics is required.

4. Maybe that leaves manipulation post voting - how do you change the counts of these machines, without opening them? Remember no wireless connectivity. And, with all the parties' electoral reps present at the counting session.

5. Finally, how does the incumbent lose if he has access to the EVMs to manipulate them? Would CPM, that master of electoral gimmickry (even post EVMs) have lost to Trinanool? How about DMK to ADMK?

Maybe you can still game 1 or 5 or 10 constituencies (you could do that more easily in the past with paper ballots, in any case) - I don't know how, but let us say you can - but, then so what??? Can you game 100-125 constituencies? Only then can you game the LS elections.

Isn't it more likely that our disappointment with the voting results leads us to come up with conspiracy theories?

Cheers

Supratim

On 9 August 2013 11:12, Madhukar Thote <mythote@gmail.com> wrote:

A good article. EVM can be easily manipulated by changing the software which can be easily done. It is not clear why Election commission should have any objection. The best option is the voting paper. Advanced Countries normally use the voting paper.

M.Y. Thote 

On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 3:20 PM, S K Jain <skjain84@gmail.com> wrote:

It is very much possible that firmware can be fixed. You press any button, vote will go to desired candidate. 

If you look at the credentials of persons who were responsible for fixing of the firmware (software embedded in hardware), you may find sudden jump in their career graph.


S. K. Jain

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