Prove It Wrong: Election Commission Throws An Open Challenge To Hack EVMs!
Election Commission has thrown an open challenge to people who want to try and hack the machine. Commission wants to send a message to the political parties who urged to revert to the paper ballot system raising doubts over infallibility of the machines. Challenge will be open for a week or 10 days and will have various levels.
In a bid to put all the doubts over the electronic voting machines (EVM) to rest, the Election Commission has thrown an "open challenge" to people who want to try and hack the machine.
With this step, the commission wants to send a message to the political parties, who urged to revert to the paper ballot system raising doubts over infallibility of the machines. "From first week of May, experts, scientists, technocrats can come for a week or 10 days and try to hack the machines," an official source said.
AP
According to poll panel officials, the challenge will be open for a week or 10 days and will have various levels. The Commission had announced a similar challenge in 2009 and it claimed no one could hack its electronic voting machines (EVMs).
BCCL
The opposition to EVMs gained momentum particularly after the recent results of the assembly elections in five states. BJP saw landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh, after which political parties were casting doubts over the EVMs.
Among those who were demanding to check the EVMs was Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which said that the Election Commission is issuing a political statement on the issue of EVM tampering instead of taking due action.
The EC had said that AAP was free to file an election petition in the state high court if it wanted to verify votes cast in Punjab polls with data of paper trail.
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal also election commissioner Nasim Zaidi to discuss EVMs tampering issue.
Later, he told media persons that the EVMs are being tampered at a large scale and it raises a question mark on the democracy.
AP
The vulnerability of the EVMs have been a contentious issue for long. But it escalated after the BJP's landslide victory in the recent UP elections. Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati was the first to raise the allegation, claiming that votes of her candidates went to the BJP.
BCCL
AAP which tasted humiliation in Punjab also made similar allegations about the EVMs used there. A number of other opposition parties also joined the chorus on raising questions on the credibility of the vote.
All these while the Election Commission has stood its ground and maintained that its EVMs are tamper-proof.
