17 PARTIES TO PUSH EC FOR BALLOT PAPERS

Mamata finds a new glue to hold Opposition together – scrapping of EVMs

On an initiative of TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, leaders of 17 political parties will be pressing the EC told the next general election with ballot papers.

The efficacy of the EVM is in question in view of the swirling allegations about its manipulation.

A day after Mamata made a pitch for approaching the Election Commission with the demand, her Rajya Sabha leader Derek O'Brien told reporters that "we are planning to meet next week.’’

He said Mamata had impressed upon leaders of all parties she met during her 3-day visit to Delhi that a joint delegation must go to the Election Commission to tell it frankly that EVMs are not acceptable and it better start preparing right now to hold the elections with ballot papers.

He said people have lost confidence in EVMs after the manner in which they threw up the most unexpected results in 2014 and thereafter.

Hoping that all opposition parties will unite on this "common agenda" to get rid of the EVMs, O'Brien said TMC has already held demonstrations outside Parliament questioning the neutrality of the Election Commission in insisting on the EVMs, despite many former Chief Election Commissioners recommending that the nation should revert to the ballot system.

He hoped that even the Shiv Sena has publicly decried the manipulation of some of the elections in Maharashtra.

The Congress has already adopted a resolution in its first meeting of the CWC to press for use of the ballot papers. Its leaders pointed out that the world over, countries like Germany, which had gone in for EVMs, had reverted to ballot papers. The United States continues to use ballot papers in its elections.

He pointed out that the EVMs since they were first adopted in the United States by many states 15 years ago were found to be vulnerable to hacking as the computer scientists found every make and model susceptible to malfunctioning for many reasons.

They found that the systems were not designed with robust security in mind and even where the security features were included, experts found them to be poorly implemented with glaring holes.

The New York Times carried a lengthy article in its issue on February 21, 2018, on the risks of using the EVMs. They had found out how a remote-access software had been installed on the voting machines in many countries to programme their voting machines. In one case, these scientists found that the software was not used by any hacker but by an authorised contractor from his home; so, anyone can use his home computer to manipulate the election system.

The Election Commission claim that the EVMS cannot be hacked since they are not connected to the internet.