'Pagers can be hacked, but...’: What CEC Rajiv Kumar said about EVM safety

CEC Rajiv Kumar

Moments after declaring the poll schedule for Jharkhand and Maharashtra, chief election Commissioner on Tuesday laid the conjecture around the safety of electronic voting machines in India to rest.

Answering a query raised by the opposition Congress regarding the credibility and security of electronic voting machines (EVMs), the chief of the poll body said, EVMS- used for voting in elections in India – cannot be hacked or tampered with as they are not connected to any device. They don't even need electricity to work.

A question that was doing the rounds was- "If pagers can be exploded, then why can't EVMs be hacked? The chief election commissioner answered this question in one line: "Pagers are connected, but EVMs are not connected." The Congress and social media have been raising the question — if Israel can hack Hezbollah pagers to cause blasts in Lebanon, can’t EVMs be hacked? The Congress lost in Haryana, despite exit polls giving the party a clear lead.

“Questions have been raised over EVMs in the past too. First some said that a vote cast for one party can go to the other…Now we are wondering what will be the next accusation. It will come for sure, such claims won’t stop,” said Kumar, adding the EVMs are foolproof as the battery is inserted in front of a poll agent. “There are checks on every level with videography and it is opened in front of agents of all parties. There is no scope for tampering,” iterated CEC.

Pagers are connected to a paging network. According to a report, wireless pagers use a special code that the whole wireless paging system understands. However, EVMs run on an ordinary 7.5-volt alkaline power pack (manufactured using 5 AA-size cells of 1.5 volts each) supplied by Bharat Electronics Ltd, Bangalore and Electronic Corporation of India Ltd, Hyderabad.