Thread by @mayankgandhi04

1/n EVM hacking theory is flawed for several reasons, mentioned in threads.
Read all at mayankgandhi05.blogspot.com/2019/01/evm-ha…

AAP won nearly 96 per cent of the seats in 2015 elections with precisely same EVMs. Congress has since won 4 states using same EVMs. Should there be re-elections?

2/n I was a candidate in 2014 LS elections.Few days before poll, scores of our volunteers were called for ‘EVM checking’. They were allowed to select machines randomly and press buttons multiple times to confirm that their votes were being registered correctly.

3/n. Volunteers pressed assortment of buttons across various machines, and each time result was correctly regd.
Of all machines tested, one proved to be faulty—when volunteers repeatedly pressed the button against my name, the vote was transferred to nondescript independent

4/n As soon as we pointed this out, the officer promptly replaced machine. That’s when I came to understand the kind of rigid standards and care that was taken by the independent EC to ensure that elections were fair.

5/n Even if there happen to be a few faulty machines, this does not amount to a case of massive rigging. Maybe some machines might be sending that faulty vote to a BJP candidate. To discredit out EC and democracy based on some faulty machines is undermining our country.

6/n 5 Machines are individual sets (like a calculator, using its own algorithm) that cannot be influenced from outside, by wi-fi etc. Therefore EVM cannot be mass influenced, nor changed without physical contact with each individual machine.

7/n During the '14 LS elections, 9,00,000 EVMs were protected day and night by Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), election officers and political workers across all parties. To suggest that EVMs, despite such scrutiny, were having their motherboards tampered was unrealistic.

8/n There were 34 lakh permanent & temporary employees as part of the election exercise. Its impossible to conceive of party being able to arm-twist all into ignoring physical manipulation of EVMs with contrary voice or whistle-blower. Many retd EC staff hv never raised this.

9/n In several constituencies across Punjab and Goa, where AAP made allegations of the ruling party hacking EVMs, the maximum seats went to the Congress. Did the BJP manipulate the results so the Congress could win?

10/n In many of the cases, opinion polls and especially exit polls have been reasonably accurate. But opinion poll and exit polls are not made on EVM, why do they match?

I had started studying EVM and their possible misuse in 2017.

11/n The results of all 1,642 polling stations in 40 assembly seats of Goa as well as 33 assembly seats in Punjab that had VVPAT (voter verified paper audit trail)—an independent verification method in ballot-less voting system to check that their vote has been cast correctly.

12/n Connected to EVM, the printer-like apparatus generates receipt indicating the symbol and name of the candidate voted. After being visible from a glass case in the VVPAT for some seconds, ballot slip is cut and dropped into drop box in the VVPAT machine and a beep is heard.

13/n VVPAT machines can be accessed by polling officers only. The VVPAT rolls are taken out for counting if candidate, his election agent applies to the returning officer (RO) to count printed paper slips in any or all the polling stations.

14/n As per counting data of 33 VVSAT constituencies of Punjab, Cong got highest votes in 20 seats, SAD (ShiromaniAkali Dal) and AAP emerged victorious in 6 constituencies each. This showed little variation with results in other constituencies having EVMs without papertrail.

15/n None approached courts, which was obvious course of action.

When EC, to call opposition’s bluff, scheduled open hacking challenge for EVMs, opposition did not participate. Instead, they wanted to physically handle EVM and change internal circuitry, obviously refused by EC

16/16 The hue and cry against EVM is pure drama. Soon, I shall write about who and why are some people are trying to discredit EC.