EVM Hacking

Heavy police security was deployed on Tuesday at a village in Maharashtra's Malshiras assembly segment after some locals cast doubt on the EVMs and insisted on conducting a "re-election" with ballot papers, officials said. The Malshiras sub-divisional magistrate on Monday imposed prohibitory orders, under section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita, from December 2 to 5 in the area to avoid any conflict or law and order situation due to the "repoll" plan of some locals, an official said. Residents of Markadwadi village under Malshiras segment in Solapur district have put up banners claiming a "repoll" will be held on December 3. The village comes under the Malshiras assembly constituency, where NCP (SP) candidate Uttam Jankar defeated BJP's Ram Satpute by 13,147 votes in the November 20 state polls, the results of which were declared on November 2. Though Jankar won the seat, Markadwadi residents claimed he polled less votes in their village against Satpute which was not

While the EVM is a simple calculator, it increases the vote count automatically at night, Maharashtra NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) chief Jayant Patil alleged

Mumbai Cyber Police has lodged an FIR against a man who claimed he could hack EVMs by isolating machine frequency, Election Commission (EC) officials said. The complaint in the matter was lodged by the Maharashtra chief electoral officer (CEO), alleging that the claims made by the accused, Syed Shuja, were false, baseless and unsubstantiated, they said. The FIR was registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the IT Act at Cyber Police Station, Dakshin Mumbai on November 30 "against the person in this video", the CEO said. The EC action came after some social media users shared a video in which a man is heard claiming that he could hack and tamper with electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the Maharashtra elections by isolating the machine's frequency. EC officials here identified the man as Syed Shuja. In 2019, the EC ordered filing of an FIR against Shuja for making similar claims. "In a similar incident involving false claims, an FIR was lodged on the direction of the

Senior Congress leader and Chhattisgarh's former chief minister Bhupesh Baghel on Monday alleged that several Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and VVPAT units were changed after polling in the Rajnandgaon Lok Sabha seat, from where he contested the elections. Baghel claimed the numbers of several EVMs used in the April 26 voting in Rajnandgaon provided by the Election Commission of India (ECI) does not match with details of machines of the booths concerned mentioned in Form 17 C. However, the returning officer of Rajnandgaon denied any irregularities or mismatch in numbers. In a post on his X handle on the Lok Sabha poll counting eve, the former CM said, "The Election Commission had given the numbers of the machines which were used in the voting. This includes (numbers of) ballot unit, control unit and VVPAT. "According to the information mentioned in Form 17 C after the voting in my constituency Rajnandgaon, the numbers of several machines have changed. The booths where the ...

NCP (SP) candidate from Maharashtra's Ahmednagar Lok Sabha seat, Nilesh Lanke, on Wednesday claimed a person breached the three-tier security and tried to reach a godown where the EVMs were kept after polling in the constituency. Lanke posted on X a CCTV grab while claiming the person tried tamper the close-circuit camera and reach the godown. The Nationalist Congress Party (SP) leader raised questions over the security deployed there. "A person easily breached the three-tier security around one of the godowns where EVMs are stored. He tried to tamper the CCTV cameras, but my colleagues intervened in time," he claimed in the post on X. "If my colleagues can catch the person, I wonder how the three-tier security system could not stop the unidentified person. Does it mean the system itself is biased and trying to steal democracy? It looks like the administration is being a mere spectator," he alleged. Lanke was pitted against BJP's Sujay Vikhe Patil in the Ahmednagar Lok Sabha ...

Bypoll for Satara Lok Sabha constituency was held simultaneously with the Assembly polls on October 21

Naidu said like any technology, the EVM could also be misused and it was easy for those writing the software to hack it

Election Commission's expert committee on EVM has Prof Emeritus IIT Delhi D T Shahani, IIT Bhilai director Rajat Moona and Prof Emeritus IIT Bombay D K Sharma as its members

EC had issued certain guidelines regarding proposed hacking which were not fair, says Sanjay Singh

Several major opposition parties had claimed that people's faith in the machines has eroded

Trinamool Congress advocates state funding of elections

AAP and BSP have been the chief proponents of the idea that EVMs can be, and were, hacked

Election Commission is also likely to brief the parties about its planned EVM hacking challenge

AAP also sought to drum up support for its campaign through demonstration outside EC headquarters