Have complete faith in EVMs: Election Commission

NEW DELHI: With AAP and BSP raising questions afresh over the reliability of electronic voting machines (EVMs), the Election Commission on Thursday affirmed its "complete faith in EVMs".

Allegations of tampered EVMs have been levelled by BSP chief Mayawati and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. Congress has supported AAP's demand for use of ballot papers in the Delhi municipal polls.

The EC said it has not received a specific complaint from any political party or candidate about alleged EVM tampering. "ECI assures all citizens that EVMs are tamper-proof and (it is) fully satisfied with the integrity of the election process using EVMs," it said.


Referring to videos of alleged EVM tampering doing the rounds on social media, the EC said, "What has been demonstrated or claimed to have been demonstrated is on a privately assembled lookalike of ECI-EVMs and not the actual ECI-EVMs."

Pointing out that polls to 107 assemblies and three national elections were held since the introduction of EVMs in 2000, the EC said, "At this stage, baseless, speculative and wild allegations are being made which deserve to be rejected."

It offered to look into any specific allegation presented to it with material facts, "with all seriousness on the administrative side". The EC said it would enhance the confidence of citizens in its electoral process by deploying a voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) system in a phased manner.

VVPAT, which facilitates the generation of a paper slip bearing name and symbol of the candidate along with a voting record in the control unit of the EVM, was introduced for the first time in a Nagaland byelection in 2013. The commission now has around 55 lakh VVPAT-enabled EVMs but would require an additional 15.5 lakh machines to completely roll it out for the 2019 general elections.

"ECI has been relentlessly pursuing with the government for sanction and release of funds of Rs 3,174 crore for requisite number of VVPATs so that they could be used in all parliamentary constituencies in general elections to Lok Sabha in 2019," the statement said.

It would take 30 months to manufacture and procure the 15.5 lakh machines needed for the purpose. The commission said nobody had been able to prove or demonstrate till date that EVMs could be compromised.

This was despite EC having asked those who had doubted EVMs to use a weeklong window in August 2009 to demonstrate if any of the 100 EVMs at its headquarters could be fiddled with. The EC's response comes a day after Mayawati said she would move court on the issue.

Kejriwal too had alleged that EVMs may have been tampered with in Punjab. "It is about the credibility of the EC and the faith of people in the electoral system. We have strong prima facie evidence of foul play," he had said.