The Election Commission on Tuesday responded to the Aam Aadmi Party’s claims that Electronic Voting Machines were rigged in the recent Assembly polls and Delhi civic body elections. The party on Tuesday had held a demonstration where it had attempted to show that EVMs could be easily rigged.

However, in a definitive statement, the polling monitor has said that any voting machine besides their own can be made to seem as though they have been tampered with. AAP leader Saurabh Bhardwaj had used a “lookalike” EVM in the Delhi Assembly during the demonstration on Tuesday.

The EC said any “‘lookalike’ machine is just a different gadget, which is manifestly designed and made to function in a ‘tampered’ manner and has no relevance, incidence or bearing on the commission’s EVMs”. It added that such a “demonstration” cannot be “exploited” to influence the EC.

“It is common sense that gadgets other than ECI-EVMs can be programmed to perform in a pre-determined way,” the EC’s statement said.

The Election Commission has called an all-party meeting on May 12 to discuss the EVM controversy. On Tuesday, AAP chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had claimed that any EVM’s motherboard could be replaced in 90 seconds.

The party’s “demonstration” in a special session of the Delhi Assembly came after several weeks of it alleging that EVMs have been tampered with. The matter had first come up when the Bharatiya Janata Party won elections in two states by a large majority, and then won the Delhi civic polls. Several national leaders, including former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, have criticised the AAP for insisting that EVMs were rigged to help the BJP win elections.

Ahead of the civic polls in Delhi, Kejriwal had said that he feared the machines will be tampered with. He had been campaigning for the polling monitor to switch back to using the paper ballot system. His demand has been supported by all major Opposition parties. On April 11, as many as 16 Opposition parties had written to the polling monitor alleging that the tampering of EVMs had created a “deep-seated trust deficit” on their reliability.

The Election Commission, through media, has learnt about a so called demonstration of tampering of ‘look-alike’ EVM. In this context it should be understood that it is possible for anyone to make any electronic gadget which ‘looks-like’ ECI EVM and demonstrate any Magic or Tampering. Very simply put, any ‘look-alike’’ machine is just a different gadget, which is manifestly designed and made to function in a ‘tampered’ manner and has no relevance, incidence or bearing on the Commission’s EVMs. It is common sense that gadgets other than ECI EVMs can be programmed to perform in a pre-determined way, but it simply cannot be implied that ECI EVMs will behave in the same manner because the ECI EVMs are Technically Secured and function under an elaborate Administrative and Security Protocol. Such so called demonstration on extraneous and duplicate gadgets which are not owned by the ECI cannot be exploited to influence our Intelligent Citizens & Electorate to assail or vilify the EVMs used by the Commission in its electoral process.

Election Commission of India (ECI) has scheduled an All Political Parties meeting on 12th May 2017 for EVM Issues and other Electoral Reforms. The Status Paper on ECI EVMs is available on ECI’s website (http://eci.nic.in/eci_main1/current/StatusPaperonEVM_09052017.pdf) which gives details of Safety and Security Measures taken by ECI to make ECI EVMs non-tamperable.

— Dhirendra Ojha, Director