Amidst US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s claims of finding evidence of massive vulnerabilities in EVM machines, CEC Gyanesh Kumar said EVMs in India were safe.
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s claim that Electronic Vending Machines (EVMs) can be hacked and are vulnerable, reignited the long-running EVM debate in India. Responding to the controversy, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Saturday said EVMs in India are safe and are not being tampered with. CEC said the election process varies from country to country.
Why Indian EVMs are safe: CEC explains
As per the statement shared by Kumar, EVMs used in India cannot be connected to the internet, Bluetooth or infrared. Hence, they cannot be hacked or tampered with. He further said EVMs used in our country cannot be connected with anything in any way. CEC also added that five crore VVPAT slips have been counted, and no discrepancies have been reported.
“In India, EVMs made by PSUs were used, and on these machines, legal scrutiny had been done, and the EVMs of India cannot be connected to Bluetooth infrared, and so it is not possible to tamper with them,” Kumar said while speaking to reporters. Gyanesh Kumar arrived in Ranchi on Friday evening on a three-day visit to Jharkhand.
What did Tulsi Gabbard claim?
During a Cabinet meeting convened by US President Donald Trump on April 10, US Director of National Intelligence Gabbard said the Intelligence department has evidence that EVS are ‘vulnerable to exploitation’ to manipulate the results of votes cast and advocated for paper ballot-based elections.
“We have evidence of how these electronic voting systems have been vulnerable to hackers for a very long time and vulnerable to exploitation to manipulate the results of the votes being cast, which further drives forward your mandate to bring about paper ballots across the country so that voters can have faith in the integrity of our elections”, Tulsi Gabbard said.
This is to be noted that she did not refer to the EVMs being used in India.
SC should take notice of EVM-hacking issue: Randeep Surjewala
Soon after Gabbard’s claim, senior Congress leader Randeep Surjewala demanded that the Supreme Court take suo-moto notice of the issue and announce a probe. He further said the EC and the Centre should reach out to the US government and Gabbard to collect all the details of hacking and other vulnerabilities of EVMs.
