EC’s EVM challenge to go ahead today

The Election Commission (EC) has organised more than 10 vote machines that were recently used in elections, including in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, for Saturday’s EVM hackathon, where political parties will try to prove that the machines can be rigged. The EVM challenge will go on as scheduled as the Uttarakhand High Court on Friday rejected a plea for a stay on it.

The same court had earlier asked for voting machines used in the Uttarakhand election to be sequestered after Congress candidates complained that the result was gamed against them.

A total of 14 EVMs will be made available to representatives of Sharad Pawar's NCP and the Left, who hope to prove that the Election Commission is wrong and that the equipment used by it can be tampered, as alleged by a series of political outfits including the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party. All other political parties have decided to boycott the show.

At the Election Commission's event on Saturday, hackers will get four hours --from 10 am to 2 pm --- and access to four machines each. The other EVMs will be kept as back up. The EC has said its challenge has two parts --the hackers will have to prove that the EVMs used in the five states that just voted, including Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, were manipulated to favour a particular candidate or political party. Part Two of the challenge calls for participants to prove that the machines used in the Assembly polls were manipulated before or on the day of voting.

The participant will be considered “failed” if the EVM stops functioning as a result of its inbuilt defense mechanism against tampering.