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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | RTI Response Raises Serious Questions About Security, Handling of EVMs -Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

RTI Response Raises Serious Questions About Security, Handling of EVMs -Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

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published Published on Dec 7, 2017   modified Modified on Dec 7, 2017
-TheWire.in

Discrepancies between Election Commission and Electronics Corporation of India Limited data on number of ballot units and control units manufactured have also been revealed.

New Delhi:
The response by the Election Commission (EC) and two electronic voting machine (EVM) manufacturers – Electronics Corporation of India Limited and Bharat Electronics Limited – to an Right to Information (RTI) query relating to a petition filed following the Uttarakhand polls has revealed administrative and security protocol violations as several machines were apparently handled by unqualified staff.

The RTI responses have also revealed divergence in EC and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) data on number of ballot units and control units that have been manufactured over the year. Further, it has indicated that proper records on disposal of the EVMs were not available.

Additionally, while 70 cases of thefts and loot of EVMs have been reported, no convictions have happened so far. Incidentally, all these cases were reported from states which are now under BJP rule.

This assumes significance since various parties have alleged EVM tampering in the assembly elections to five states held earlier this year and civic body elections held in Uttar Pradesh recently.

The petition was filed in April by former Uttarakhand minister and Congress candidate from Vikas Nagar constitutency, Nav Prabhat, against the winning candidate of BJP, Munna Singh Chauhan, before Justice Sarvesh Kumar Gupta of the Nainital high court under Section 80A of The Representation of People’s Act 1951, alleging irregularities in electoral practices during the assembly elections held earlier this year.

On receiving of the complaint, the court had ordered the seizure of EVMs used in the constituency, which were then taken into judicial custody. As Congress candidates of six other constituencies – Mussorie, Rajpur, Raipur (Dehradun), BHEL Rampur Hardwar, Pratap Nagar and Hardwar Rural – also lodged similar complaints, they too were clubbed with the original application and the EVMs from these constituencies too were seized on court orders.

Prabhat said the issue at hand was the blatant flouting of security protocols of the EC. “There is a clear instruction that for 45 days after counting of votes, the EVMs should not be moved out but in the case of Vikas Nagar and some other constituencies their EVMs were moved from Maharana Pratap Statium in Dehradun to District Collectorate compound just a day after the counting.” Similarly, he said, such movements took place in 13 other districts.

Even when the EC summoned EVMs from states that had gone to polls for the ‘EVM challenge‘ in June this year, he said the EVMs which were brought from Chakrata and Dehradun Cantonment constituencies in Uttarakhand were found in Delhi by Congress workers with their locks broken. Subsequently, a complaint was lodged and the state election commission had ordered a probe.

But more importantly, the petition filed by the Congress candidate has through RTI replies raised more important issues about adherence to the administrative and security protocol laid down for EVM use.

Violation of administrative and security protocol

The petitioner said when he filed a query under the RTI Act with the ECIL about the number of personnel deployed by it for the elections in Uttarakhand, he was told by ECIL on that eight regular employees were posted by it in Uttarakhand for the assembly elections 2017.

While ECIL had stated on July 31 that “on behalf of ECIL eight regular employees were posted in Uttarakhand” for the assembly elections and that the corporation was there to “provided technical support” as directed by the EC, the petitioner had claimed that the number of personnel disclosed by the state election commission was much higher at 70.

Furthermore, the petition had stated that while ECIL had stated that “for any elections conducted through EVMs supplied by ECIL, then only technical personnel from ECIL will be involved”, to carry out “first level check, commissioning and electioning (sic)”, the petition charged that most of the personnel deployed as per the election office reply was not qualified for the job. In fact, the petition said none of the eight ECIL personnel were deployed for the first level checks. So who carried them out?

Please click here to read more.

TheWire.in, 6 December, 2017, https://thewire.in/202442/evm-tampering-rti/


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