The Election Commission will organize the EVM challenge in New Delhi today where political parties will try to prove that the machines can be rigged. Here is the breakdown of do's and dont's of the challenge.
1. The two sole parties- NCP and CPM, that came forward to contest in the challenge made by the Election Commission of India to prove EVMs can tamper, will be given two separate halls to test the voting machines.
2. The poll panel has selected 14 random EVMs that were used in the general and state election held in Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, for the parties to take up the tampering challenge.
3. The EC has laid out its challenge in two parts -
i) The hackers will have to prove that EVMs used for voting in polls were meddled with to show the altered results in favor of a particular party.
ii) The hackers/participants will have to prove that EVMs used for the challenge were tampered on or before the day of the polls.
4.The event began with a team of engineers giving a detailed demo of the EVMs and the VVPAT or voter-verifiable paper audit trail-equipped machines, which produce a paper receipt of the voter's choice for proof.
5. The hackers/participants are allowed to 'physically examine' EVMs and check circuits, chips, and motherboard, but cannot restore any part.
6.AAP has challenged the EC stating that it will conduct its own parallel hackathon today with a preliminary version of EVMs, to prove that they can be tampered easily and has invited even Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi to take part in the challenge.
7. Parties can use a maximum of 4 EVMs each for the challenge. 8. EC along with the members of a technical committee which helps in evaluating the EVMs would judge the hackathon.
9. The hackers/participants are allowed to use wireless networks like remote, cell phones, Bluetooth etc to tamper the EVMs.
10. The hackers will have to alter and control the results of the EVMs in the similar circumstances as during the polls, where in the EVMs will be strictly monitored and safeguarded by the admisnistrative team.
11. If the inbuilt anti- tampering mechanism shuts down the EVMs or if the EVM shows the result of the booth where it was used during the polls even post tampering, the hacker/participant would be considered to have failed.