Indian EC has full confidence in its EVMs

In the backdrop of opposition parties demand for a return to paper ballots for the coming national elections, the Election Commission of India has said it has firm conviction about “the integrity, non-tamperability and credibility of its Electronic Voting Machines.”

“The basis of confidence of the Commission flows from a wide range of technical and administrative protocols and procedural safeguards that protects our EVMs and VVPAT (Verifiable Voter Paper Audit Trail) against any sort of tampering during manufacture, transportation, storage, polling and counting process,” the Election Commission said in a statement on Friday.

The immediate trigger for the EC statement was the controversy over EVMs used in the recent elections to Delhi University Students Union in which RSS-affiliated students wing won three of the four office-bearer posts defeating Congress party's student front.

The EC said “certain complaints of alleged tampering of EVMs during the recently held elections held by different organizations/institutions elsewhere also generated wrong perception about EVMs of Election Commission of India.

“It was noted that confusion exists in the minds of many about the jurisdiction of ECI. We would like to clarify once again on this occasion that ECI is not responsible for the conduct of local body elections (Municipalities, Panchayats etc.) that are conducted by the State Election Commissions and elections held by various organisations/institutions in the country and consequently about various protocols and procedures adopted by them,” the EC statement said.

The Commission said the important technical and administrative safeguards available in ECI-EVMs might not be available in EVMs being used by other organisations/institutions.

It said that till 2017, Bharat Electronics Limited, Bangalore and Electronics Corporation of India Limited, Hyderabad, were allowed by the federal Election Commission of India to supply EVMs to State Election Commissions and other organisations.

“However, since May 2017, BEL and ECIL were directed to seek the Commission's prior approval and supply only EVMs that are different from ECI-EVMs to SECs or to other foreign countries, that too only after the current ordered quantities to ECI are fully supplied,” the statement said.

It said old EVMs are sent to BEL/ECIL for destruction and destroyed as per strict protocol prescribed by the Commission.