Dileep wrote:I would venture that this time the increased turnout where BJP is actively running all benefit BJP.
We are missing Dilbu here. My only worry is that there can be a vote split among the angry Hindu voters between an okay secular INC candidate and the BJP candidate. In Thrissur constituency the commies fielded an X'ian chap hoping that X'ian votes+hard core commie votes would go for him. And the Angry Hindu votes would get split between
Gopi Saar & TN Prathapan (of INC).
Mort Walker wrote:What about Tharoor in Trivandrum?
There is a strong rumour that the Nair community; a strong vote base of Trivandrum supported Kummanam Rajashekharan of the BJP this time. K.R has a much more clean image than Tharoor, and K.R is also quite vocal on Hindu issues. Tharoor also messed up a campaign meeting held at a fish market; where his English comments were mis-read by the 100% literate Malayali. It was as if Tharoor found the fish market to be a smelly & dirty place; but kind of went there hoping to get votes. Some disgruntled Congress leaders also "condemned" Tharoor over such remarks; which reinforced that Tharoor had made such nasty statements.
williams wrote:All these claims about fraud simply will fizzle. Where is the evidence? For every mala fide official there are hundreds of honest people in our institutions. They will simply not allow it.
ShyamSP wrote:One example that happened is EVM failure or polling stopping at a time when say X-party voters come and vote - voter disfranchising is something EC needs to take responsibility.
Karan M wrote:Over the past several years, we have seen that this entire charade of EVM outrage only conveniently occurs when any party suddenly discovers that results may not have gone in its favour
When it comes to EVMs chances of hacking it is pretty much impossible.
1. EVMs are not connected to any network and are stand alone machines.
2. The issue of EVMs to a polling booth is at random; even though once issued their numbers are tracked to the polling booth level.
3. There are at least three levels of checking (and sealing, using different coloured tapes) done by the Presiding officer on the EVM Machine. On each of it the Presiding officer signs and the representatives of candidates also counter sign. At any stage they can refuse to counter sign if they are in doubt.
4. Then mock polling is done for at least 50 votes. Again this is also recorded and statement and signatures of polling agents taken.
5. The presiding officer, polling officers, the police men on duty; are multiple set of people who are witnessing the working of EVM. There are also polling agents of each party. So it can only be a miracle that such wide selection of people all collude to do some thing on the EVM in order to tamper it. Please note; none of these people are highly technically qualified to do complex programming to chip sets.
But can this make the election process fool proof? No, but that is NOT the fault of the EVM.
1. In KL we saw a case of a person having three votes in three different booths. Which means that the voters list can be tampered. Voter list are prepared by people, and with no close supervision. It is often done by low level state level officers who are politically motivated. Election Commission relies a lot on the low level state govt. officials to get the documentation work done.
2. Making sure that the opponent voters don't come any where near the polling booth (like what was tried out in WB). The election commission depends upon state police machinery to draw up a list of "extra-sensitive", "sensitive" polling booths. Police
bandobust schemes are then drawn up based on this. The election commission officials (many of them being IAS officials of state cadre) may be reviewing this, but they are not experts in police deployment. The central police forces, or police from neighbouring states are often only extra man power. The state police officers decide where they get posted and in what number.
3. Usual stuff like cash payment, liquor and any other form of inducements.
PS: Came back to say. In KL in a very pro-INC locality some one complained (after the machine polled 70+ votes); that any vote for Congress goes to BJP. The Election Commissioner immediately verified the truth after telling the petitioner that he would be arrested on the spot if the complaint is false. The complaint was false, and immediately similar complaints from other parts of KL were all taken back
. The bluff of blaming the EVMs have been exposed, mainly because the usual whiners (from the "secular" camp) don't mention this in elections they win.