WHAT IS EVM? (ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE)

WHAT IS EVM?

(ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE)

EVM is an abbreviation of ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE.

It is a portable device to conduct elections to the parliament, legislature and local bodies like panchayats and municipalities.

 EVM consists of two units : 

  1.   Control unit 

  2.   Ballot unit

The Control Unit is placed with the Presiding Officer or a Polling Officer and the Balloting Unit is placed inside the voting compartment. Instead of issuing a ballot paper, the Polling Officer in-charge of the Control Unit will release a ballot by pressing the Ballot Button on the Control Unit. This will enable the voter to cast his vote by pressing the blue button on the Balloting Unit against the candidate and symbol of his choice.

In 1989, the Election Commission (EC) developed India's indigenous Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in alliance with two central government undertakings -  the Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL) and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL). EVMs were used for the first time in the Goa State Assembly elections of 1999.

 

How to use EVM?

 1.A voter needs to press the button against the candidate of his/her choice and then a red-light glows against the symbol and name of the candidate for whom the vote has been cast. Simultaneously, a long beep can be heard, which confirms the polling of a particular vote.

 

2. At the booth, a presiding officer will enable the ballot unit after the voter enters the polling compartment

 

3. Press the blue button on the ballot unit against the symbol and name of a candidate of your choice.

 

4.The red light will glow against the name or symbol of the selected candidate and a beep will be heard

 

5.Voter will see a print of a ballot slip containing the name and symbol of the candidate and the serial number

 

Can evm be hacked?

NO.

As per the gov. information available...

M1 (model one) of EVM machines were manufactured till 2006 and had all necessary technical features making M1 non-hackable contrary to claims made by some activists. On the recommendations of the Technical Evaluation Committee in 2006, M2 model of EVMs produced after 2006 and upto 2012 incorporated dynamic coding of key codes thereby enabling transfer of the key – press message from Ballot Unit (BUs) to Control Unit (CUs), in an encrypted form as an additional security feature. It also contains Real time setting of each key press so that sequencing of key presses including so called malicious sequenced key presses can be detected and wrapped. Further, the ECI- EVMs are not computer controlled, are stand alone machines and not connected to the internet and /or any other network at any point of time. Hence, there is no chance of hacking by remote devices. The ECI-EVMs do not have any frequency receiver or decoder for data for wireless or any external hardware port for connection to any other non-EVM accessory or device. Hence no tampering is possible either through hardware port or through Wireless, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth device because CU accepts only encrypted and dynamically coded data from BU. No other kind of data can be accepted by CU.