The first two rounds of polling brought numerous reports of malfunctioning electronic voting machines (EVMs). In Andhra’s Nunagapaka village, for instance, early voters complained that when they pressed the button of the Congress, the light of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) glowed. The presiding officer, K. Vijayalakshmi, stopped the polling and replaced the EVMs, but 89 votes had already been cast. The Election Commission (EC) will now decide on these 89 votes. In Wardhannapet, polling agents of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi alleged that after 75 votes had been correctly recorded, a long sequence of votes was recorded in favour of the TDP. Finding this suspicious, the polling officer sealed the EVM.

The EVMs manufactured by the Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) could contain the following flaws: Faulty logic, incorrect algorithms, erroneous data flows; errors in circuit design; mistakes in the software code; mistakes, or malicious backdoors, in databases, and so on. Requests to the EC, BEL and ECIL to provide the entire circuit schematics, source codes, and test vectors for scrutiny by neutral experts elicited the laconic response that the EVM design is tamper proof.

Reliance should not be placed on demonstrations by ECIL and BEL. Electronic equipment containing embedded software frequently behave totally differently in field conditions than they do during short trials. I can write a software module which would pass all trials but manipulate the results of actual voting. I could programme the EVM to accurately record votes for three hours. I could instruct it to then assign 70 per cent of all subsequent votes cast to whichever candidate was leading at the end of the first three hours, irrespective of whichever buttons later voters push. Since public demos usually last less than three hours, my ‘tainted’ EVM would pass such tests. I could then have my candidate win. This was alleged to have been done in a local US election but could not be proved since the audit trails had also been erased. Or I could program the EVM so that at the end of five hours of polling, it would transfer 60 per cent of the votes of the five lowest candidates to my favoured candidate. This was also alleged to have been done in the US. Even in response to lawsuits, EVM manufacturers in the US refused to make their proprietary circuits and software codes public, claiming them as trade secrets of commercial value.

If someone wanted to engineer a repoll, he could bring an electromagnetic pulse generator near an EVM and erase its memory. The EVMs could also be interfered with after the election but before counting. All electronic circuits are susceptible to electromagnetic interference. Even when EVMs are kept physically sealed inside a strong room, an expert who knows the resonant frequencies of the circuits could remotely send signals from a distance away. It is highly unlikely that polling officials would transport and store each and every EVM in electromagnetically shielded Faraday cages. It is also not known what physical shocks EVMs can withstand. After the voting, when the EVMs are being transported over bumpy rural roads, the electromechanical components, registers, switches, relays, and physical connectors could be reset due to jerks.

An IIT alumnus and professor of electronics in the US, Satinath Choudhary, had filed a PIL in the Supreme Court, pointing out technical flaws in EVMs and requesting that they include provision for an audit trail and a paper backup. California recently passed a law requiring all EVMs to have such backups. The Supreme Court, on April 30, disposed of the writ petition with the observation: “In case the petitioner files any representation, the EC may consider his suggestions.” Now several leading technologists, including IIT alumni and professors of engineering in the US, are planning to petition the EC to open the EVMs to expert scrutiny and to have them modified to include paper backups and audit trails.

Meanwhile, during the next two rounds of voting, voters should take the following precautions: One, ensure that the “ready lamp” is lit before you cast your vote. If the “ready lamp” is not lit, then the EVM will not register the button you press, and the next voter or presiding officer can cast ‘your’ vote. Two, ensure that you, and not electoral officers, press the button. Three, ensure that the light flashes next to the button of your candidate that you have pressed and the long beep is heard, before you exit the booth. This ensures that the EVM has registered your vote.