The Election Commission has been steadfast in its refusal to address the concerns of civil society, even though the concerns raised in the CCE report are alarming, the technocrat said.
Abdul Bari Masoud | Clarion India
NEW DELHI – Voters in the country have lost faith in electronic voting machines (EVMs) and therefore the Election Commission should switch back to the the paper ballot method, Indian Overseas Congress chairman and renowned technocrat Sam Pitroda said on Thursday.
“There is a huge trust deficit. It doesn’t matter what the Election Commission of India thinks, it matters what the people of India think… The only option today, according to me, is paper ballot,” he said during an online press conference from Chicago.
Pitroda, former advisor to slain prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, said paper ballots should be used for the Lok Sabha elections, saying time had run out to debate whether EVMs could be hacked or not.
Pitroda said the Election Commission had not addressed questions raised about the EVMs and VVPATs, including in its recent reply to Congress leader Jairam Ramesh’s assertion. He said now with Lok Sabha elections soon, the time to discuss those issues was gone.
Pitroda, along with M.G. Devasahayam, Coordinator, Citizens’ Commission on Elections, also criticised the Election Commission for exhibiting an “autocratic attitude”. They said a group will be put in place to monitor the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The group will have seven members, including four from overseas.
“The modalities are being worked out, and this group will keep a watch on the elections. It will examine matters other than EVMs. The issues include defects in the electoral rolls and the actions of the Election Commission,” he said.
On how an international group can monitor polls in India, Pitroda said, “Why not? What’s wrong with it? We are a country of 1.5 billion people and need to be open and transparent. We want to lead the world, and yet we are not open.”
The outcome of the election, he said, has nothing to do with the Congress’s success in states like Telangana and Karnataka. “I’m not saying that it’s happening. As a voter, I am expressing that I no longer have faith in elections,” he said.
Pitroda also mentioned that the Election Commission has been frequently petitioned by civil society to either return to paper ballots or count all of the VVPAT slips. “This is not about pushing for digital India. It is about going back to the fundamentals, going back to the paper. And the 2024 election will decide the destiny of the nation for a long time to come. The voter no longer knows whom to trust as far as EVMs and VVPATs are concerned. We have to convince the voter, not the ECI,” he said.
The ECI has been steadfast in its refusal to address the concerns of civil society, even though the concerns raised in the CCE report are alarming, the technocrat said. Additionally, he exhorted people to speak out against EVMs, saying that doubts are being expressed about their accuracy and authenticity.
Slamming the ruling party’s hate-mongering factory, Pitroda said democracy in the country is at a crossroads because of polarised politics. “Social media amplifying lies, hate, and fear, and I see this in India and many other countries. As a result, people’s votes become even more powerful. India is the largest democracy, but in the last few years, some of us believe institutions are under attack, civil society is not allowed to function freely, and as a result, the freedom of people is being affected,” he said.
Pitroda expressed his worry that “we will lose people’s trust in elections” if we don’t get ready in the coming weeks. And we will stop believing in democracy if you do that.
Pitroda said he was speaking as an Indian citizen and not as a member of the Congress party. On whether the INDIA bloc will be pressured to include the demand for paper ballots in its manifesto, he said: “Manifestos come in the end. This issue needs to be resolved right away.”
Pitroda said his advice to the opposition is to “wake up,” and speak with a single voice regarding the EVM issue.
Retired IAS officer Devasahayam remarked that numerous citizen groups have been unsuccessful in getting the ECI to address to their concern regarding the way elections are being conducted. According to him, the CCE study, which was assembled by international specialists in the domains of electronics and computer science, unequivocally said that “the current system is unfit for democratic elections in the absence of end-to-end verifiability of the voting process.”
He said that in a democracy, the citizen is sovereign, and they are transferring his sovereignty to a representative, and the voter does not know where the vote is going. It does not comply with the basic principle of democracy, he said.
“The Election Commission brought in VVPAT to ensure verification of votes. It is natural that the paper slip is to be counted, but EC said to just count the memory of EVM. This is a complete joke. They are counting only a few VVPATs, but not the whole. That is a fraud by the Election Commission,” Devasahayam said, noting that the EC is not listening to anyone.
“In practice, there is a requirement for 100% counting of VVPAT slips. The system should be software and hardware-independent to be verifiable, which is why the German Supreme Court threw out EVMs and declared unconstitutional any electoral process that does not comply with the principles of democracy and end-to-end verifiability,” he said.
Devashayam also chastised skeptics who said that counting paper ballots is a laborious and time-consuming procedure, stating that holding an election requires weeks or even months. However, they are in a terrible rush to finish the counting procedure and want it done over as soon as possible.
