Decode Politics: How EVMs became a punching bag for parties

On the recommendation of a Technical Expert Committee (TEC) appointed to examine EVMs, the EC in April 1990 decided to use EVMs. In 1998, EVMs were used in 16 Assembly elections, including in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi. This was gradually expanded over the years till 2004 when all 543 Lok Sabha constituency elections were conducted using EVMs. Since then, it has been used in all Assembly and parliamentary elections.

The Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machine, the second part of the EVM, was first used in a pilot in one Assembly constituency of Nagaland in 2013. Since the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the VVPAT has been used with EVMs in all elections.

What are the legal challenges to the EVM?

The EVM has faced challenges right from the beginning. A candidate in Parur, Sivan Pillai of the CPI, challenged the use of EVMs before the pilot project was rolled out. According to the Election Commission’s 2021 Status Paper on EVMs, the Kerala High Court dismissed his challenge. Pillai subsequently won the election. Later, another candidate challenged the use of EVMs and the election was held again with paper ballots in 1984. The Supreme Court ruling at the time had been on a legal technicality, which was addressed by an amendment to the Representation of the People Act, 1951 in 1988, and not on EVM’s suitability itself, the EC paper noted.

On the possibility of EVMs being tampered with, several High Courts have given their verdicts. The Karnataka High Court in 1999 ruled EVMs were tamper-proof while hearing a challenge by a candidate who lost from the Yelahanka Lok Sabha constituency in Bengaluru. A Madras High Court order in 2001 said there was “no question” of any virus being introduced into EVMs. Hearing a petition asking for the return of ballot papers, the Supreme Court in 2018 said it was “not inclined to entertain” it and dismissed the petition.

While hearing a petition on the counting of VVPAT slips, the Supreme Court in 2019 ordered that slips of five polling stations per Assembly seat or five pollen stations in each Assembly segment of a Lok Sabha constituency be verified. It also noted, “We are certain that the system ensures accurate electoral results”.

What are the concerns expressed by political parties?

The EC has maintained that the EVMs are standalone machines and cannot be tampered with, though being a machine it can and does malfunction sometimes.

While leaders of the Congress and other Opposition parties are now questioning EVMs, it was the BJP during the UPA government’s term that expressed doubts. In 2009, BJP leader and former Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani demanded a return to paper ballots. In 2010, a year after the Lok Sabha elections were won by the Congress, in a blog post he doubted the fairness of EVMs. Current BJP MP and then BJP national executive member G V L Narasimha Rao authored a book in 2010 titled Democracy at Risk! Can We Trust Our Electronic Voting Machines?

After the Uttar Pradesh elections in 2017, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati and Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav doubted the EVMs. The Aam Aadmi Party, too, expressed concerns about the reliability of EVMs. On May 24, 2017, AAP leader Pankaj Kumar Gupta wrote to then Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi alleging that “the BJP has been winning elections as they are tampering with the motherboards of EVMs”. Gupta cited the demonstration by party MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj of an EVM-like machine being tampered with in the Delhi Assembly.

In a rare public response, the EC wrote back the next day and uploaded the letter on its website for the public. The EC said the incidents cited were “factually incorrect” and Bharadwaj’s demonstration was done using a lookalike and not an EVM. But noting the concerns of the political parties, the EC called a meeting of all recognised national and state parties in May 2017 where it said it would ensure 100% VVPAT use in future elections.