Pictured: Control Unit, EVM and VVPAT

Since the 2018 assembly elections in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, concerns that  Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) can be hacked or tampered with have steadily gained ground. Such reports and concerns are often confined to the realm of conspiracy theories, even though there have been many questions left unanswered in India’s experience with EVMs. India’s Election Commission has steadfastly denied any possible vulnerability of EVMs. Even so, during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, EVMs were reported to have malfunctioned, but the functionaries of the Election Commission were swift to remove the offending machines and replace them. Also, in the same election, independent data analysts demonstrated how the numbers of votes polled and votes counted did not tally in several constituencies. This finding was again swiftly rubbished by the Election Commission who blamed the mismatches on human error.

During the Lok Sabha polls in 2019 and the recently concluded assembly elections in Maharashtra once again doubts were raised about the reliability of EVMs. In one case, an EVM recorded votes for the ruling BJP independent of whatever button was pressed on that machine. The machine was replaced. Several such incidents were also reported by voters in other places during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. However, with every such incident, arguments are made for states to revert to paper ballots. In May 2019, Frontline reported that about 20,00,000 EVMs were “missing”  between 1989-1990 and 2014-2017, based on information sourced through the Right to Information.

If elections in a democracy are not widely seen as free and fair, there is a huge breach of trust by the government and its electoral institutions against its citizens. The problem in India is that current assessments of whether an election is free and fair are benchmarked against the days of booth capturing and ballot stuffing, and as against this backdrop EVMs are seen as a positive development that actually advance democracy. This thinking that techno-solutionism can automatically advance democratic rights and democracy are found across the board even in assessments made by prominent think tanks. Unfortunately, at this point, there are enough and more reasons to interrogate and investigate the vulnerability of those machines that are supposed to uphold the democratic voice of 900 million voters. Many concerns about the vulnerability of the democratic process and EVMs have been raised not only by concerned citizens but also by respected bureaucrats, politicians and political commentators. It is time that these concerns be taken seriously and openly debated in India.

Kannan Gopinathan, a former bureaucrat, has previously discussed how the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) makes the EVM system vulnerable to tampering in this interview. Earlier this month, he wrote a formal letter to Mr. Sunil Arora, the Chief Election Commissioner of India, expressing his concerns about the EVM-VVPAT process and interactions, pointing to how these interactions actually do lead EVMs open to tampering/hacking. We think this is a letter that every concerned citizen should read. Therefore, we are publishing the letter in the public interest in its entirety below.