Election Commission says EVMs are Tamper-proof

New Delhi: Putting the debate over the effectiveness of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) into end, the Election Commission asserted that all EVMs are tamper-proof and they cannot be manipulated by anyone. The EC said that the persons, who had claimed that the EVMs could be tampered with, either could not prove their claim or chose not to demonstrate the vulnerability of the EVMs.

The EC had collected 100 EVMs, randomly chosen from 10 states Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh and has put them on display for the last six days. The commission had asked everyone to prove that the machines could be tampered, but nobody could do that.

Retired bureaucrat Omesh Saigal, who led the criticism of EVMs, wanted to demonstrate a machine made by a private manufacturer, instead of the machine used by the EC, but he was not allowed to do so.

BJP leader Kirit Somaiya and another petitioner Satinath Chaudhury were also invited by the Election Commission to prove that EVMs could be tampered with. While Satinath Chaudhury failed to demonstrate, Kirit Somaiya gave some useful suggestions to the EV regarding the use of the EVMs.