Election Commission to meet political parties on Friday, to seek views on conducting EVM hackathon
NEW DELHI: Election commission will seek views from political parties on conducting hackathon for EVMs in a meeting called on Friday. The poll panel will hold the meeting, as many political parties including Aam Admi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal and the Congress, BSP have challenged the legitimacy of electronic voting machines (EVMs).
In a bid to dispel the doubts on the working of EVMs, the EC has decided to hold an open hackathon for people to try and hack the voting machines in the last week of May. Before this, the poll panel called a meeting on Friday with the leaders of all major parties.
The meeting has come following recent demonstration by an AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj in Delhi assembly on ‘how to hack EVMs.’ While the AAP leaders have maintained that it is possible to hack even authorized EVMs used for the polls, the poll panel had rejected the claims of AAP saying that demonstration was done only on a look-alike machine.
The poll panel has been insisting that EVMs used for polling purposes are completely secure and it can’t be rigged, but, the political parties have complained again and again against this.
The poll panel had said it may invite experts, scientists, technocrats, and representatives of political parties to hack the machines, which it claims are tamper-proof. The Election Commission had announced a similar challenge in 2009 and no one could hack the EVMs.
Aam Admi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal had initiated the debate on voting machines by stating that its defeat in Punjab and at other places was calibrated entirely by malpractices. Even after the MCD polls results, many AAP leaders blamed EVMs for the defeat. Apart from this, many other Opposition parties, including the Congress, have alleged tampering of the EVMs after the recent Assembly elections. A delegation of 16 parties recently met President Pranab Mukherjee and submitted a memorandum on the alleged tampering of the voting machines during the February-March elections.
The parties have urged the Election Commission to revert to ballot system, claiming that the faith of the people in EVMs has been eroded.