EVM ‘hackathon’: Election Commission says won’t change rules of challenge

The AAP and Congress, while refusing to participate in the challenge on June 3, had written to the Election Commission on Friday flagging certain issues.

The Election Commission on Saturday stood its ground on conducting the open challenge to prove the tamperability of EVMs within the rules it had laid down.

Polling officers checking electronic voting machines (EVM) at an EVM distribution centre in Noida on February 27, 2012. (Burhaan Kinu / HT File)

The Congress and the AAP had asked the poll panel to change the rules of the open challenge that will be held on June 3.

In separate letters to both parties that are not taking part in the challenge, the poll panel has stressed that it made no promise to hold a no-hold barred exercise.

“About a ‘promised no-holds barred Hackathon’, it’s clarified that no such ‘promise’ was ever made or announced by the commission,” EC said.

To the AAP’s demand to change the motherboard of the voting machine, the commission said that changing internal circuit of the device is just like changing device itself.

“EC specified that EVM challenge will be conducted within framework of existing administrative safeguards and security protocols,” letter said.

Only the CPI-M and NCP have signed up for the June 3 challenge.

The AAP has been the biggest critic of the EVM, insisting that it can be hacked. It even held a ‘demonstration’ of an EVM being hacked in the Delhi Assembly earlier this month using a replica machine.