Would you put your money in an ATM machine which can't tell you when your cash was stolen or which won't give you a receipt for your cash deposit? Ten out of 10 respondents would reply with an emphatic 'no way'.

So why does the Indian electorate trust its valuable vote to an electronic voting machine (EVM) which provides no audit trail and no receipt?

The Election Commission has so far dogmatically refused to review the security protocol of our voting machines on the grounds that it has not received a single credible piece of evidence of misuse of EVMs. Nor has anyone so far effectively demonstrated that our EVMs can be manipulated, it asserts.

But the point really is not whether the EVMs have been manipulated so far, rather, whether it can be done. Free and fair election is the touchstone of a democracy. If there is the slightest suspicion that the electoral process can be compromised, it is the duty of the Election Commission to remove such misgivings. Computer experts believe there is no piece of software in the world that cannot be hacked or cracked into. Microsoft, the world largest software company with a turnover of over 60 billion dollars, has gone on record to state that it is not a question of 'if' the software you use will be hacked but a question of 'when'. A secure computer software is an oxymoron.

An Election Watch body in Andhra Pradesh, whose members are highly respected citizens and many of them software experts, argues that since all software can be tampered with, there is a need for constant monitoring of our EVMs. There must be total transparency in providing information about how the EVMs operate rather than prohibiting all outsiders, including experts, from examining the machines.

... contd.