Supreme Court Rejects Demand for 100% Count of VVPAT Slips

[Sukla Sen]

[In the subject context, it's necessary to keep in mind that if one EVM can be manipulated, then each one can be manipulated.

Of course, it's going to call for appropriate scaling up of effort inputs. Hardly any hurdle for the regime.

The Chandigarh Mayoral poll pretty conclusively demonstrates that the regime would go and rig every little election if it's capable of doing that.

Yet, the BJP had roundly lost the assembly polls in West Bengal and Karnataka -- by far the two bitterest fights -- since 2019.

However, the stupid din over EVM has ensured that this Supreme Court judgement will have an adverse impact on the morale of the anti-BJP voters. Would, apart from helping to mask the myriad ways in which the poll is being actually rigged, add to the burden of voter apathy: If the result is pre-fixed, why take the trouble of going to vote?

How seriously that remains to be seen and depends on multiple factors including how the din-makers -- the true believers and the pragmatists -- conduct themselves now.

It should be clear to anybody and everybody that the call to vote with great gusto and the (loose and unsubstantiated) talks of the poll results being made to order via EVM manipulations simply don't go together.]

<<In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Friday (April 26) rejected the pleas seeking 100% cross-verification of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) data with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) records.

The verdict was delivered by a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta. Though the cases were reserved for orders on April 18, they were listed again on April 24 as the Bench wanted some technical clarifications from the Election Commission. Taking into consideration the answers given, the orders were pronounced today.

Notably, the two judges have authored separate, yet concurring, judgments in the matter.

Referring to the conclusion of the judgments, Justice Khanna said in Court that the prayers for reverting to ballot paper voting, complete EVM-VVPAT verification, giving VVPAT slips to voters (to put them in the ballot box) and regarding Rule 49MA of the Conduct of Election Rules have been rejected: "We have rejected all of them...after referring to the protocol in place, technical aspects as well as the data which is on record".

However, the following 2 directions have been issued :

(1) That on completion of the symbol loading process in the VVPAT, undertaken on or after 01.05.2024, the Symbol Loading Unit (SLU) shall be sealed and secured in containers. The candidates or their representatives shall sign the seal. The sealed containers containing the SLUs shall be kept in the strong rooms along with the EVMs at least for a period of 45 days post the declaration of results. They shall be opened and examined and dealt with as in the case of EVMs.

(2) That the burnt memory semi-controller in 5% of the EVMs, that is the Control Unit, Ballot Unit and the VVPAT, per assembly constituency or assembly segment of the Parliamentary constituency, shall be checked and verified by a team of engineers from the manufacturers of the EVM post the announcement of results, for any tampering or modification, on a written request made by candidates who are at serial number 2 or 3 behind the highest polled candidate. Such candidates or their representatives shall identify the EVMs by the polling station or the serial number. All candidates and their representatives shall have the option to remain present at the time of verification. Such a request should be made within 7 days of the declaration of the results. The District Election Officer, in consultation with the team of engineers, shall certify the authenticity and intactness of the burnt memory microcontroller. After the verification process is conducted, the actual cost or the expenses for the said verification will be notified by the ECI and the candidate making the said request will make payment of the said expenses. Expenses will be refunded in case the EVM is found to be tampered.

Besides the above, the bench suggested the ECI to see if there can be an electronic machine for counting the (VVPAT) paper slips and whether along with the symbol there can be a bar code for each party.>>

(Excerpted from: <https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/-supreme-court-rejects-pleas-seeking-100-evm-vvpat-cross-verification-issues-directions-to-seal-symbol-loading-unit-256174>.)

and a l

[sukl...@gmail.com]

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[Sukla Sen]

<<In the subject context, it's necessary to keep in mind that if one EVM can be manipulated, then each one can be manipulated.

Of course, it's going to call for appropriate scaling up of effort inputs. Hardly any hurdle for the regime.

The Chandigarh Mayoral poll pretty conclusively demonstrates that the regime would go and rig every little election if it's capable of doing that.

Yet, the BJP had roundly lost the assembly polls in West Bengal and Karnataka -- by far the two bitterest fights -- since 2019.>>

Moreover, there's not one specific instance, till today, where the complaint of EVM tampering has been pursued.

It's all assumption, presumption and apprehension.

In case the EVMs are being manipulated, there was no need for the BJP to do all the skullduggery it's indulging in.

More importantly, the only logical response to that would have been poll boycott till the system is cured of this (presumed) "ill".

And that's the real danger. This irresponsible loose talk tends to demoralise and demotivate the anti-BJP voters. Helps Modi in a significant way. Despite its radical facade.

Sukla

On Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 23:14 Satinath Choudhary <sati...@gmail.com> wrote:

The EVMs can be manipulated

Please watch the video (6:37 minutes) at https://indiaevm.org/, Listen to the election commission official at 4:10 from the beginning, stating: “The program itself is frozen. It cannot be read. It cannot be entered. Even the BEL and ECL cannot read that ...”

Once something is etched into a chip, it cannot be “read”. It can be given some input, and the program in the chip can process and give an output. However, no one can get a clue of what the program is on the chip. 

The program itself can be made to work in several modes depending upon secret code transmitted to it electronically via blue tooth, WiFi, or carrier signals that transmit our voice from one phone to another. Antenna can be hidden in the chip. 

In one mode, the chip can broadcast, the final vote count for all candidates at the close of voting, via secret codes, including a serial number of the machine and its geo-location with GPS. So, the technicians managing the chips would get a good picture of the election result, and in which machines the vote counts need to be manipulated. 

On the day of counting they would wait for the verification of electronic count on some randomly selected EVMs and matching the same against the VVPAT’s counts. After the verification process is over, the rogue technicians would start broadcasting secret codes that can instruct specific machines to transfer specific number of votes from one or all candidates to the chosen one, enabling the chosen one to win from the chosen constituency. They would not have to manipulate all of the machines.

The program can also be so written that it can restore the original counts to various candidates. This way, the machines can again pass verification of randomly selected machines.  The only way to catch such vote manipulation would be counting all of the votes, not just randomly selected ones. 

If a program like the one described above is etched into a chip controlling an EVM, there can be no way of catching any vote manipulation, or its capability to do so on receiving secret electronic codes. The secret code that enable the machine to manipulate vote counts in them would be almost impossible to be decoded and prove that the machine contains manipulable program. 

How can such a program go into the machine? All that a suitable entity has to do is to pore sufficiently large sum of money into the coffers of the company responsible to the etch the programs sent by ECL & BEL to a chip etching company in Japan, USA, Israel or wherever. Would that be difficult for Indian government, or Adani or Ambani? 

Mind you, “The program itself is frozen. It cannot be read. It cannot be entered. Even the BEL and ECL cannot read that,” as rightly stated by an ECI official.

Yes, there are chips on which a new program can be written. But whatever has been written or rewritten, cannot be read. They can be given whatever input we want and read the output. But the program itself cannot be read. We cannot find out what kind of tricks it can do. To make it perform the tricks we will have to know the secret electronic codes that can be sent to it via secret radio waves. 

-Dr. Satinath Choudhary

sati...@gmail.com

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