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With the general elections a success story, Electronic Voting Machines are now on the export list. Singapore and Mauritius will soon be plac...

With the general elections a success story, Electronic Voting Machines are now on the export list. Singapore and Mauritius will soon be placing sizeable orders for EVMs for use in their own elections.

Chief Election Commissioner T.S. Krishnamurthy said deals with the two countries would be finalised shortly. ‘‘The two manufacturing companies sought our permission which we gave readily. There may be a change in the design of the EVMs manufactured for Singapore since their requirement is slightly different from ours,’’ he said.

The CEC added that the Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Don McKinnon, had personally asked him to dispatch an EVM for display in the Commonwealth Secretariat in London. ‘‘I had a meeting with the Secretary General in London and he was so impressed with the largescale use of EVMs by India that he wanted one to be kept in his office. He wanted other countries to be motivated in using the machine,’’ the CEC said.

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The EVMs, manufactured by the PSUs, Bharat Electronic Limited (BEL) and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), cost around Rs 12,000 each but may be somewhat more expensive for foreign buyers. ‘‘It is possible the two companies ask for a higher price for the EVMs. What is important is that when some people in India still insist on how the machines can be manipulated, they are being noticed by foreign countries,’’ Krishnamurthy said.

His reference was to political leaders including Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa who are still harping on the unreliability of the EVMs used in the elections. Krishnamurthy said the accuracy of the EVMs has been tested by more than one technical team, and, should somebody have doubts on the rigging of an election through EVMs, they should file a petition with the Election Commission.

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More

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