The Whole Business with EVMs
Hmm, so the losers in the Elections chose the easiest of victims the EVM. Subramaniam Swamy wrote articles how it can be changed to suit the results. It is strange that DMK and Congress are capable of doing it but not BJP and ADMK. Does one team look more tech savvy to you than the other. Wasnt ADMK in power in the state in 2004 when it lost 40 MP seats. Did they not know to do this when they knew EVMs can be hacked. And remember then it was BJP-ADMK both in power at the state and Centre.
Technology has its inherent risks. When you have your data in papers you could steal them only by breaking a physical building, but if you have it online, anyone can break in remotely. We are prone to GOI websites being hacked. But there are security mechanisms to be implemented, there are trails to be followed, there are audits to be performed. The voting record the number of voters etc by booth is maintained in the registers manually. You could always check if the total votes on the machines equals the total polled in a booth. That way you could confirm the votes are not entered before the machines are brought in.
You could have spywares on the machines to check if some malicious program ran to move the votes from one bucket to another. There are many ways to do things. You dont immediately suggest going back to manual system which is taxing for the many individuals involved. If something was wrong with the manual system we do Repolling, likewise if EVMs are acting wierd we could do repolling on those booths even by paper if need be. But It should not be an excuse, it should not be accused without going into the details. You cannot just raise doubts and evade criticising your self. It is strange that people who spoke so much about leveraging technology, India's great technological manpower could stoop to levels so low to justify their losing an Election, but we cant expect better from our politicians can we?
Technology has its inherent risks. When you have your data in papers you could steal them only by breaking a physical building, but if you have it online, anyone can break in remotely. We are prone to GOI websites being hacked. But there are security mechanisms to be implemented, there are trails to be followed, there are audits to be performed. The voting record the number of voters etc by booth is maintained in the registers manually. You could always check if the total votes on the machines equals the total polled in a booth. That way you could confirm the votes are not entered before the machines are brought in.
You could have spywares on the machines to check if some malicious program ran to move the votes from one bucket to another. There are many ways to do things. You dont immediately suggest going back to manual system which is taxing for the many individuals involved. If something was wrong with the manual system we do Repolling, likewise if EVMs are acting wierd we could do repolling on those booths even by paper if need be. But It should not be an excuse, it should not be accused without going into the details. You cannot just raise doubts and evade criticising your self. It is strange that people who spoke so much about leveraging technology, India's great technological manpower could stoop to levels so low to justify their losing an Election, but we cant expect better from our politicians can we?
posted by Devanathan at 6:51 AM
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