The Lok Sabha polls of South Goa Constituency began at 7 am on 23rd April, 2014. Within half an hour, a quiet little booth (no. 31) of a village called Cuncolim (34 AC ) in Salcete Taluka came under the limelight due to a faulty EVM. But this was not just a random defect. During the Mock poll, 9 votes were entered for each of 4 candidates in the booth. Shockingly, the total count reported was BJP gets 17, Cong 9 , AAP 8 and Ind 1. There is no doubt the EVMs have been tempered but what happened and what can be done about it? The Chief Electoral Officer brushed the whole thing off saying it was just a mock poll. But the pattern of vote transfer confirmed what I would hypothesize was most likely an algorithm to give a particular candidate a lead without getting detected.
What’s The Modus Operandi?
Say there are 1000 votes in each consistency of which 400 vote for Congress, 300 vote for BJP, 200 vote for AAP and 100 vote for an independent candidate. In successful EVM hack, the votes transferred shouldn’t be detectable.
Congress and BJP being two old parties have a fair idea of how much votes they will get in their strongholds. If BJP has to win, they cannot deduct Congress votes else the hack will be detected and there will be an outcry.
So, the ECI hacker (it has to be an inside job) has included a small software (in technical terms, a subroutine to the main EVM code) which transfers the votes from the candidates that got the least votes, i.e. the independent candidates and a few votes of AAP, to BJP. So out of the 100 votes polled for independent, 95 votes get transferred to BJP. Of the 200 votes polled for AAP just 20 votes transferred to BJP. So, the final tally will be BJP- 415, Congress 400, AAP- 180 and Ind- 5.
Thus, BJP gets a majority. Congress can’t detect the fraud since they got their estimated number of votes. AAP and independents don’t have any estimate of how many votes they will get so they won’t be able to detect the fraud.
Why Does BJP Still Lose?
BJP loses when the votes polled for Congress are higher than those polled for BJP + independent votes combined. If the contest between BJP and the other big opponent is a close fight, BJP has a higher chance of winning with these tampered EVMs.
Also, all the EVM machines do not need to be tampered. Just tampering 10% of EVMs increases the probability of a win for an average BJP candidate.
Why Did One EVM Get Detected?
Probably there is a trigger mechanism (a combination of buttons or a time-based trigger) which starts the subroutine/tampered code for transferring voters. Since it’s an electronic device – the tampering itself can have faults that expose the machine.
Doesn’t The Regulations Protect The Machines?
No. The rules in the EVM manual are such that only the 1st runners up can ask for VVPAT paper ballot count to verify the EVM results. The rules state that for a candidate to request VVPAT counting, the difference between his votes and the winner’s votes must be less than the votes polled at any given booth.
Therefore in our example, AAP and independent candidates can never ask for counting of VVPAT under current registrations
The Solution
It’s no coincidence that in every case of faulty EVM, the votes always go fraudulently to the BJP. The ECI has been unusually opposed to the counting of all VVPAT paper ballots stating that it will take too much time.
But the Supreme Court should not listen to the excuses of ECI and pass a verdict before the Lok Sabha results that all the VVPAT machines of every booth have to be counted.