New Delhi: Speaking at an election rally in Araria, Bihar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Supreme Court judgment on EVMs on Friday was a “tight slap on the face of the opposition who used to cry for EVMs”.
But the issue may not have ended with the court order at all.
Examining 5% of the micro controllers or chips onto which the software is loaded, sealing the symbol loading units that load this software and asking the Election Commission to examine if VVPAT slips could be counted by a machine and barcoding the party symbol sound like steps in the right direction. But looking deeper, experts question the logic.
Why no third-party checks?
A computer science expert who did not wish to be identified told The Wire, “If the court had said that the microprocessors should be examined by third party experts, then the expert could dump the memory of the chip onto a tool to get the binary of the programme running on the EVM. This would enable the expert to do a reverse engineering to determine what program was running on the EVM.”
Once that happened two possibilities would have emerged, according to the expert. “If the code is doing something it is not supposed to, then that will be there in the programme and will become public. And if during the symbol loading process, the code is changed and if the SLU is sealed soon after like the court has ordered, there will be no way of erasing the malicious programme. Secondly, the Election Commission which has been reticent to share the source code would now with the present judgment be willy nilly forced to share it.”
Unfortunately, the court didn’t say that the microprocessors could be checked by third party experts. They explicitly said that engineers who had been part of the EVM manufacturing team would check them. There is a strong possibility that they would then not reveal anything to candidates or to the public.
The district electoral officer has been authorised to greenlight any decision these engineers take. Says the expert, “Since it will be engineers from BEL and ECIL, even if they get to reverse engineer the code, they may be sworn to secrecy.”
One Friday morning, a bench of Justices Sanjeev Khanna and Deepak Dutta gave two concurring judgements. To begin with, Justice Khanna said, “The burnt memory/microcontroller in 5% of the EVMs, that is, the control unit, ballot unit and the VVPAT, per assembly constituency/assembly segment of a parliamentary constituency shall be checked and verified by the team of engineers from the manufacturers of the EVMs, post the announcement of the results.”
Who can question the electoral verdict?
Candidates, who are second or third to the highest polled candidate (or their representatives) can identify the EVMs which they wish to be examined and can remain present while the process is on. The candidates will bear the cost which will be refunded if the machines are found to be tampered with. The complaint has to be made within seven days from the date of declaration of the results and the district election officer in consultation with the team of engineers shall certify the authenticity/intactness of the burnt memory/microcontrollers, the court said.
The expert said, “In other words, the court has come up with a complex solution to a simple problem which is end-to-end verifiability. It would be far simpler to put the slip in the hands of the voter and let her put the slip in a box which can then be counted and matched with an electronic count.”
One of the petitioners, Abhay Chhajed, said, “Since we wont be allowed to check the software and only government engineers will certify that the machines are fine, we are back to square one. However it is still a small step since in the past we had to go to court each time. Now we can demand the chip be examined.” Chhajed, who unsuccessfully contested the Maharashtra assembly elections in 2015, had moved the Bombay high court which allowed his plea. One EVM was examined for the first time by a CFSL laboratory to check who voted for whom.
“Symbol Loading Units”
The court has also said that henceforth, the Symbol Loading Units (SLUs), which are small devices that look like a computer mouse and used for uploading data in the VVPATs, will be sealed and secured and kept in the strongroom along with the EVMs at least for a period of 45 days following the declaration of the results. For the current election, those machines will be secured “on completion of the symbol loading process in the VVPATs undertaken on or after 01.05.2024”. Which means this process and rules formulated by the court come into effect starting May 1. Two phases of the general elections for the 18th Lok Sabha are already over. Only 352 seats remain to vote of the 543 seats in the House – 190 have voted, and Surat won’t be voting as the BJP candidate has been ‘elected’ before polling.
Ex IAS officer Kannan Gopinathan, a strong votary for a more transparent voting process, said, “The judgment is in the right direction.” But he said, several questions remain to be answered. “The SLU which was not part of the custody chain will now be kept with the Returning Officer in the strong room. However, a question will be raised as to where it is going to be kept because it is an external device and cannot be kept along with the polled EVMs. Questions will also be raised about the laptops used to upload data on the SLU. Will the laptops be secured as well? Will these external devices be kept alongside the polled EVMs?” He says that could be risky because the laptop is Wi-Fi and bluetooth enabled.
Also read: Why the Supreme Court Verdict on EVMs Is Disappointing
EC to determine if VVPAT slips could be counted by a machine
The court also suggested that the Election Commission may like to examine whether the VVPAT slips can be counted by a machine instead of the “time consuming” process of hand counting being followed now. The court also wanted the ECI to examine if the party symbols loaded onto the VVPATs could be bar-coded.
The expert quoted above questioned this. “What if the machine is designed to print the BJP’s barcode against the Congress symbol. There would be no way of distinguishing. Instead, like in the US, the VVPAT machines should be designed to punch a hole next to the symbol. The voter would have the satisfaction of knowing that the vote has been correctly recorded. An optical reader would then count the vote. This judgement is clearly not helping in any way.”
The prayer of some of the petitioners that 100% VVPAT slips should be counted or that it should be given in the hands of the voter was rejected. On the latter, the court said, “Giving physical access to VVPAT slips to voters is problematic and impractical. It will lead to misuse, malpractices and disputes.”
On the demand for increasing the number of VVPAT slips to be counted, the court said, “It will increase the time for counting and delay declaration of results. The manpower required would have to be doubled. Manual counting is prone to human errors and may lead to deliberate mischief. Manual intervention in counting can also create multiple charges of manipulation of results. Further, the data and the results do not indicate any need to increase the number of VVPAT units subjected to manual counting”.
