The Election Commission’s challenge to prove whether the electronic voting machines can be tampered with or not will go on as scheduled for June 3 after the Uttarakhand High Court rejected a plea seeking a stay on it, reported ANI. The “hackathon” is expected to start at 10 am on Saturday.
“The Nationalist Congress Party and the Communist Party of India [Marxist] have nominated three representatives each,” an EC spokesperson said, according to IANS. “The challenge will happen in two separate halls simultaneously.” While the EC had invited all political parties for the challenge, no other party had registered for it.
Fourteen EVMs used in the recent Assembly polls have been pulled out from their strong rooms in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand for the “hackathon”, reported DNA. A maximum of four EVMs can be used by each participating party. However, extra machines have been kept as back up.
Four hours, from 10 am to 2 pm, will be provided to the challengers to tamper with the machines. Communication devices, such as cellphones and Bluetooth, or a combination of keys, can be used to tamper with the machine.
The participants will have to prove that these EVMs used in the Assembly polls has been manipulated before or on the poll date. If the EVM stops working due to its inbuilt anti-tampering feature, a participant would be considered to have failed the challenge. The proceedings would be judged by members of a technical committee that helps the EC evaluate the EVMs.
Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party is all set to hold its own electronic voting machine challenge on the same day as the EC. The announcement by AAP came after the poll body rejected the party’s idea of conducting an “open hackathon”, PTI reported. Leaders from all political parties, as well as the EC, have been invited to check the machine used by party MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj in the Delhi Assembly to ‘prove’ EVM tampering.
Allegations of EVM tampering had come up after the Bharatiya Janata Party had swept state elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. AAP claimed that it had lost the Punjab polls because of this, and later stepped up its charges after the BJP won in Delhi’s civic polls as well.
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