During any election in India – whether it is a bypoll, national or state elections, media reports with allegations of voter fraud through malfunctioning electronic voting machines (EVMs) or through the tampering of said EVMs undoubtedly do the rounds. Almost all political parties accuse each other of EVM tampering and orchestrating voter fraud. However, the question that now arises is whether EVMs really are that easy to tamper with and manipulate? The short answer is no, they are not.
EVMs can be hacked in two main ways: wireless and wired. As per the analysis by various cybercrime and election experts EVM hacking is an extremely complicated feat. As EVMs are not networked devices hacking any EVM would require altering the machine itself. This means that anyone attempting to hack an EVM can not do so remotely, and would need physical access to machines themselves, which would require them to be in collusion with EVM manufacturing authorities, the ECI as well as companies that make the chips in EVMs.
EVMs are currently only produced by two public sector units in India, and the engineers producing the EVMs would have no knowledge of where an EVM they have manufactured would be deployed.
Other allegations of EVM tampering also state that EVMs are transferred after votes have been polled without mandated security of the ECI. Parties allege that these could be attempts to swap out actual EVMs with other ones. However, as per the ECI, all EVMs are placed in strong rooms that are under surveillance 24 hours a day under CCTV cameras and in the presence of CAPF security. A lot of the EVMs which are shown as being transferred without adequate security are “reserved EVMs” which are kept in case of malfunction of other EVMs in circulation.
That being said, some cases of voter fraud have still been reported, such as during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, when polling agents stepped up to the balloting units and pressed the button for a voter. Additionally, due to some lax monitoring, some instances of EVMs being found outside politicians’ residences and unsafe godowns have also been reported in the past few elections. However, these instances are rare and are usually prevented by ECI’s micro observers and polling agents of other parties. Usage of EVMs offers countless benefits such as verifiability, accuracy, security, secrecy and accessibility. EVMs ensure that no individual can revote, that every individual’s vote is recorded and counted accurately and that all votes once recorded can not be manipulated. Overall, it could be said that the majority of the reports of EVM tampering and malfunction are simply political rhetoric and are not feasible.