Should we discontinue EVMs?

ShyamSP · Post by **ShyamSP** » 10 Jul 2010 05:00

If BJP and other parties follow the same tactic, there will be paper ballots nation-wide. Good move!

====================================
http://newsofap.com/newsofap-19533-21-k ... sofap.html

K. Chandrasekhar Rao proves that he has no equals

The TRS president, K Chandrasekhar Rao has once again proved that he is a master strategist. By doing so, he has shown a great idea to the entire opposition parties in India.

Today the election commission has announced that except for the Nizamabad constituency, all other eleven MLA constituencies would go to polls by the 'paper-ballot' method.

Huge number of TRS sympathizers, who are dummy candidates, filed nominations for the MLA seats and since the EVMs can accommodate only around 64 candidates, the EC had no choice but revert back to the 'ballot' system.

Incidentally when the newsofap.com correspondents visited the BJP office in New Delhi and the TDP office in Hyderabad to take the leaders' opinions on this issue, the leaders could not help praising KCR for his master strategy.

The BJP leaders said that they would follow this strategy in all the elections from now onwards.

ShyamSP · Post by **ShyamSP** » 10 Jul 2010 05:12

On EVM vs paper ballot.

If major parties reject contesting under EVM, can EC go with EVMs? EC can go ahead and conduct, but will those elections be legitimate with major opposition parties not contesting?

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 10 Jul 2010 08:05

This is not going to help the voter. It is very nostalgic though. Imagine a zillion symbols on a paper and the voter has to actually search and vote. There will invalid votes too. I remember in one constituency they have used trucks and cranes to lift the ballot boxes when the number of candidates crossed 400. The folding of the ballot paper also has a special process to insert into ballot box hole.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 10 Jul 2010 09:51

Muppalla wrote:This is not going to help the voter. It is very nostalgic though.

Yeah. And the vote counting and the announcement of the "leads" were watched with more excitement, more than the world cup

. Vote counting done manually, would be a slower process and each candidate may have some moments when he is "leading". And then things change. I remember listening to news bulletins announcing who is leading at the moment, and by a margin of how many votes. After the introduction of EVMs counting was done in a matter of hours.

I still feel that EC should take all the parties into confidence, and come up with a ~~fool proof~~ more accurately auditable electronic voting system with a source code which can be scurtinised, rather than sulk and say they would go back to the old paper ballot mode.

Edit: after noticing Pranav's comment below

.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 10 Jul 2010 10:28

Sachin wrote: I still feel that EC should take all the parties into confidence, and come up with a fool proof electronic voting system, rather than sulk and say they would go back to the old paper ballot mode.

That is not possible, unless you effectively have paper ballots alongside EVMs ... meaning the machine prints a receipt, the voter takes it, verifies it, and puts it in a ballot box kept at a safe distance from the from the machine.

Anyway, congrats to K Chandrashekhar Rao!

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 10 Jul 2010 12:04

Still doesn't solve the issue. Anyone losing the election will claim that the machine printed the paper correctly, but counted the vote for someone else internally.

If they use the printed ballots to count, then they're back to the old ballot stuffing problem.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 10 Jul 2010 12:14

Sachin wrote: I still feel that EC should take all the parties into confidence, and come up with a ~~fool proof~~ more accurately auditable electronic voting system with a source code which can be scurtinised, rather than sulk and say they would go back to the old paper ballot mode.

One can never be sure about the embedded code unless one uses microscopes and all kinds of other equipment to forensically examine the chips. Such scrutiny would destroy the chips. It is not very practical.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 10 Jul 2010 13:47

^^^Since all systems have flaws, lets stop voting onlee and become a dictatorship.

For any kind of destructive testing, random sampling is done.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 10 Jul 2010 13:55

Raja Bose wrote:^^^Since all systems have flaws, lets stop voting onlee and become a dictatorship.

Haven't we become one already?

For any kind of destructive testing, random sampling is done.

Sure, the EC has a lot of expertise in "randomization". Not to mention the cost and complex chain-of-custody issues in testing even 1% of the EVMs. And then there will be an arms race between chip fabricators trying to hide circuitry and forensic people trying to detect it.

But the bigger issue is the principle of transparency and verifiability for the lay person, as was articulated by the German Supreme Court.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 10 Jul 2010 22:54

ShyamSP wrote:
The BJP leaders said that they would follow this strategy in all the elections from now onwards.

Stupid BJP didn't follow KCR's advise in this election. In Nizamabad constituency BJP resigned-MLA is contesting against D Srinivas. KCR advised BJP to do the same as he did in other 11 constituencies but only 19 nominations are filed here.

Something is really wrong with BJP braindead...

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 10 Jul 2010 23:00

If I can summarize for all EVM-critics...

We are FOR EVMs. We only want a paper trial (a small receipt the voter can ballot aside for x-verification). The recounts happen only when there is a doubt. Initially it may be similar to old processt where almost every election leads to a paper recount, but once the system is validated enough times people will feel confident.

The manner our EC behaving in this episode doesn't instill any confidence in them or in the process at present.

We are not at fault and we shouldn't be blamed. It is EC's job to conduct free and fair elections and they utterly failed to do their job.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 10 Jul 2010 23:15

RamaY wrote:
Something is really wrong with BJP braindead...

BJP is taking a back-seat on EVM issue. Some people in the BJP may have been compromised by Dama or Danda.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 11 Jul 2010 06:51

This was a concern:

EC rejects candidates, bangs EVMs on TRS : http://www.deccanchronicle.com/ec-rejec ... ms-trs-499

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 11 Jul 2010 09:24

We, the honest voters are being duped by the parties who don't want a honest vote. They want a system that THEY can control. That is the funda behind the opposition to the EVM.

In many areas, people do vote their mind on an EVM, because they know it is really annonymous. OTOH, they are scared of life to ignore the threats by the goondas on a paper ballot, because they know it can be traced.

Well, even if we get a honest neutral vote, our control ceased there. The same goondas are going to the legislature and thence to the govt, so it is only a small consolation. I don't see much to loose by loosing my honest vote.

The parties have turned to the 'rule book' and has taken the 'sabotage' route. That is not the arena for a techie to fight. and I don't think there will be anymore technical attempt.

My job here is done!

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 11 Jul 2010 12:12

Image of a civilized nation voting:

Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his wife Nobuko pose cast their votes for the upper house election at a polling station in Tokyo, Sunday, July 11, 2010.

Japan and Germany, both of which use paper ballots, have become beacons of freedom in the world.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/internatio ... epage=true

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 12 Jul 2010 21:02

Indian democracy worked just fine, especially as far as the voting is concerned, with paper ballots for the past 50 years. EVMs are not a panacea for all issues in Indian political and democratic process.

It is the responsibility of Election Commission to ensure that all participants in the process are confident in whatever process they come up with. EC, as the prime servant of Indian democracy, was wrong in its behavior w.r.t EVM tampering claims.

Like I said above, EC has to come with a fool-proof process to ensure that all stakeholders are thoroughly convinced of the accuracy, effectiveness, and efficiency of EVMs.

Until then they do not have any right to blame the naysayers.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 13 Jul 2010 04:48

The deadline for nomination withdrawal is over. All the dummy candidates where EVMs are a reality have withdrawn their nominations.

Paper ballets will be used in 5 constituencies. Seven constituencies will use EVMs.

It will be on INCs head if the results are polarized between EVM Vs Paper-ballot constituencies

Thomas Kolarek · Post by **Thomas Kolarek** » 14 Jul 2010 19:57

Kudos to KCR !! All this rigged EVM by so called Italian Govt Awardee:

http://www.hindu.com/2005/05/15/stories ... 460100.htm

, the famous liar boy would be cursing himself.
Hope the Opposition parties in Tamilnadu follow the same route to get rid of this rigged EVM's in next year Assembly Elections.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 10 Aug 2010 18:34

New CEC Qureshi agrees to open the EVMs and fix the technology issues.

Lets see how this goes.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 11 Aug 2010 12:38

“3 Idiots” determine Indian election results

Did you know before that India’s electoral democracy is hostage to three idiots? Lest you think that I am being irreverent to the three election commissioners holding constitutional office, let me inform right away that the three people that I am referring to are junior programmers in the EVM manufacturing companies who have written the EVM software or source code that drive all the functions of the EVMs.

This revelation was made by none other than Prof. P.V. Indiresan, chairman of the expert committee of the Election Commission of India at the Electronic Voting Technology (EVT) workshop in Washington, DC yesterday. He told a stunned audience comprising some of the best voting system security experts and computer scientists that the Election Commission of India believes that these junior programmers are honest and trustworthy as they have been told so by the EVM manufacturers namely, the BEL and ECIL. The Election Commission is told that each company has three chaps who have written the software and all of them are trustworthy.

He made these observations in a panel discussion on India’s Electronic Voting Machines at the workshop. I was also a member of the panel at the Workshop besides Dr. Alok Shukla, deputy election commissioner of India and Prof. J Alex. Halderman, University of Michigan, U.S.

Ironically, the EVM software has not been shared even with the Election Commission of India forcing its expert committee to do what is called “Black Box testing.” Is it that the ECIL / BEL do not trust the Election Commission of India – constitutional body vested with the holding of “free and fair” elections – or its experts like Prof. Indiresan but trust these three junior programmers. That sounds like a dangerous proposition.

Several experts at the EVT conference in Washington were horrified to hear that the software is in the hands of a few programmers. They all felt unanimously that this was a scary proposition with dangerous consequences for election results and not a security feature as the as the ECI seems to believe.

Prof. David Dill, Stanford University, one of the best known electronic voting security expert contested the ECI’s claims that it has administrative safeguards and checks and balances that make EVMs “fully tamper proof”. He said, “all voting systems that have been claimed to be secure have been proved to be insecure. And all systems that have been alleged to be insecure by critics have been proved to be insecure.”

“Security through obscurity”

As if relying on the “trust” of three programmers was not enough, the EVM manufacturers have “masked” the software on the microchips installed in the EVMs. This means that even if a “Trojan” (malicious software that can manipulate election results) has been inserted in the software either by the three programmers themselves or their bosses, there is no scope for people to detect it. While the whole world sees this as a security hazard, the ECI has so far claimed this to be a security feature. The EVM manufacturers are trying to provide “security through obscurity.” In Prof. David Dill’s words, this obscurity is a matter of concern and actually a cause for raising a red flag.

Can manufacturers of systems be actually manipulating them? Yes. Several experts at the EVT workshop told the Indian participants that there are several instances where the manufacturers of electronic systems are themselves perpetrating fraud. A case study of how electronic gaming companies that promised 100% security of their systems were later detected to have been engaged in utterly fraudulent operations.

From the facts available in public domain so far, the record of the two public sector EVM manufacturers namely, ECIL and BEL does not appear to be above board. We at VeTA therefore demand that the ECIL/ BEL should come clean on the following immediately:

1. Who are the programmers who have written the source code for the EVMs? Where are they now? What is their present job and income profile?

As some techies have been approaching politicians offering EVM fixing solutions, I want the ECI to find out the names of these programmers and investigate them thoroughly. The investigation must cover their antecedents and their involvement in any murky financial dealings to see if they have made any windfall gains from their “exclusive” insider knowledge.

1. The ECIL/BEL must immediately come out with the facts and circumstances leading to the decision to make the EVM software unreadable. Who suggested this? Was this done to prevent detection of any fraud and such that the crime can never be established?

1. The ECIL/ BEL must reveal why, when and at whose instance they have chosen to engage foreign multinational companies for fusing software in them.

1. The ECIL/ BEL must reveal the names of its own employees, names of other companies and individuals who have been hired/ contracted as “authorized” technicians for “first level checking” before all elections so far and explain the modalities of their selection and make public the contract documents, letters of appointment etc.

These government owned companies have so far resisted scrutiny. They have to be held accountable and cannot escape scrutiny on flimsy grounds like commercial interests and non-existent patent rights.

We will do everything possible to force these two companies to reveal all the above information. How would we do it? For instance, we would move RTI applications on all these questions, raise these questions in the media and advocate members of Parliament to raise questions in Parliament over the issue.

If the companies still resist revealing information citing commercial considerations, there is just no way left but seek outright removal of the bosses of these companies. After all, the nation’s interests are supreme and these two companies have put Indian democracy at a huge risk of being hijacked by three junior programmers and their bosses.

I can be contacted at [email protected]

Arya Sumantra · Post by **Arya Sumantra** » 11 Aug 2010 14:02

Dileep wrote:We, the honest voters are being duped by the parties who don't want a honest vote. They want a system that THEY can control. That is the funda behind the opposition to the EVM.

Sir, how do you explain PChiddu initially losing out on EVMs for a first couple of times and later declared a winner? Manual counting can make mistakes to warrant repeat counting for confirmation but how can Electronic Machines be wrong in counting? There is rigging in EVM too most likely.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 12 Aug 2010 07:24

EVMs - the US experience:

Are the elections in the United States fair and honest? A review of the facts is far less than reassuring.

Since 1964, right after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, vote tabulation for national elections has been handled not by the government, but by a private company lacking any official oversight at all. This company, which changes its name on a regular basis, is currently called "Voters News Service" and is located in New York City. This company is owned by a consortium of TV networks and wire services, which are in turn controlled by the CIA through its Operation MOCKINGBIRD. The TV networks will make a great show of being "first with the election results", but in reality all of them rely on the numbers sent to them by VNS, while seldom acknowledging its existence during the election coverage.

This is the voting process most in use in America today. A voter punches a card in the voting booth. That card is run through a computer at the local voting center, then that computer contacts computers at Voters News Service, or the precinct official telephones the numbers the computer shows him to Voters News Service, which then announces the results via the networks. Poll watchers are allowed to watch the voting booths, to guard against polling place electioneering, but in most precincts, the actual counting of the ballots is concealed from the public, and nobody is allowed to see inside the voting machines, or review the computer software that counts the ballots. 70% of all votes in America are counted by machine, and nobody, not private citizen, not local election official, nobody, is allowed to examine how it all works. The accuracy tests conducted on the voting machines before and after the actual election are utterly worthless, as they cannot detect fraud designed to fool the accuracy test itself. In 1988, when voting machines in Illinois were tested with tens of thousands of ballots instead of the few dozen normally used for the accuracy test, over 1/4 of the machines which had passed the standard accuracy test were found to have mistabulated the larger test vote results!

While researching the book, "VOTESCAM", the Collier brothers actually managed to videotape members of the League of Women voters forging ballots, and found hard evidence that Shouptronics and Printomatic vote machines were rigged in the Dade County Elections. In the Shouptronics, the wheels of the mechanical counters were shaved to cause miscounts. In the Printomatic machines, a malfunction revealed that the paper tape with the voting results had been pre-printed before the voting even started! The Colliers, along with attorney Ellis Rubin, handed the evidence to the assistant State Attorney for Florida. Sadly, that assistant State Attorney was Janet Reno, who in a pattern we have all become too familier with, killed the investigation. 60 Minutes taped a segment on the Dade County Vote Fraud, but never aired it.

Mandatory voter registration laws, such as "Motor voter" have been a boon to election fraud, generating registered voters who don't vote and whose names may be used to obtain absentee ballots. In the California election that unseated Bob Dornan following his efforts to investigate the Clinton White House, canvassers discovered that nearly half of the names registered to vote in the GOP election from 7 precincts simply did not exist. The California Attorney General's office was informed by the precinct worker, but again nothing was done. In 1998, almost 20,000 fraudulent voter registrations were discovered on the voting rolls, but were allowed to remain on the excuse that their removal in time for the election would cost too much!

The evidence for massive vote fraud in the United States uncovered by the Voting Integrity Project and organizations like it are ignored by the government, which has obviously been the beneficiary of such chicanery, and by the media, which is complicit in the fraud. When vote fraud was suspected in the 1996 Arizona Primary (the one that ended Pat Buchanon's winning streak after New Hampshire), the Arizona legislature passed a special law forbidding a recount for that one primary election only! When the Miami Magazine ran a story on the Dade County Vote Fraud, the magazine was purchased just one month later by the editor of the Miami News, Sylvan Meyer, who ordered that no further stories on vote fraud be published. When precinct workers in the 1974 Dade County elections discovered that the voting machines they were using were rigged, they walked off the job and refused to certify the election process. Police and fire fighters took over the polling duties. The next day, the Miami Herald reported the walk out, but not the reason. When the precinct workers went to the media to report the election rigging, the media ignored them. So did the local attorney general. So did the FBI. Citizens who tried to observe the next election were arrested.

Typical of the horror stories associated with the media-owned Voters News Service is what happened in Dubuque County Iowa during the 1996 Caucuses. The county's 41 precincts met in 41 classrooms at two high schools and voted on old fashioned paper ballots, which were then counted in full view of all present (including representatives of the candidates), and the results posted for all to see and verify. The vote totals were then phoned directly into Voters News Service by the county chairman, again in full view of all participants that night. Buchanon won the county by a wide margin, garnering 870 votes. By next morning, Voters News Service had dropped Buchanon's vote total for that county down to 757 votes, a 13% drop. Buchanon lost Iowa by a much smaller margin than 13%.

The Iowa state GOP claimed it could do nothing about the problem; they were "in VNS' hands". VNS, despite the paper ballots proving Buchanon's 870 votes, refused to admit error and refused to change the results for the county. Needless to say, the question of whether Buchanon had had 13% of his votes shaved off in other Iowa counties, ones in which computerized vote machines meant there was no audit trail to check, was ignored. The fact that an obviously fraudulent vote had made it all the way through the system to be reported on national television was also ignored by the media. (Iowa is the state, it should be noted, where a columnist for Salon magazine was charged with vote fraud.)

The complicity by the law enforcement machinery of this nation is astounding. In one election in Boston, a judge declared 968 ballots which had been declared "blank" due to multiple punches to be valid, arbitrarily assigning most of the disputed votes to the incumbent candidate, thereby reversing his defeat. In a computer vote fraud case in West Virginia, an expert witness testifying for the plaintiff sat down at a CES voting machine provided by the defendants, studied it for a while, then with a single ballot card added 10,000 votes to one of the fictional candidates. The judge refused to allow the jury to see the demonstration and the charges were eventually dropped.

Only three states, California, Florida, and Michigan, have laws requiring that the voting machine source code be placed in escrow should it need to be examined after an election. None of those states have any means to verify that the source code placed in escrow is in fact the origin of the compiled code running on the machines election night, and in Michigan, the escrow is simply handled by the voting machine company itself with no overview by a state agency or public interest group.

All the voting machines used in the United States come from just three companies. The Presidents of two of them have been convicted of vote fraud and yet all state governments continue to do business (at very steep fees) with just these three companies. The largest of the three companies has direct access to 50% of the nation's votes. Nobody is allowed to inspect the machines, or watch as the vote totals are accumulated and counted, and there is no audit trail anywhere along the path from the voting machine to Voter's News Service, the private media-owned company that without any official oversight, tells us all what the election results are.

Most states have now passed laws requiring a challenge to election results to be filed within a few weeks of the election, far too short a time for anyone to properly determine if such a challenge is warranted.

Despite such an obvious inhibition, a Democrat who lost a legislative seat in the 1998 Hawaiian election did file a challenge, claiming there was vote fraud. A quick audit showed that vote fraud involving absentee ballots had indeed occurred, but mostly by the Democrat; who had cheated, but not enough to win. This scandal triggered public questions about several races, including that of the Democratic Governor, Ben Cayutano, who had been trailing his Republican challenger all during the election night, only to have a sudden surge of votes at the last second push him over the top. The governor offered to over-ride the state's two week filing deadline for election challenges and allow a full recount, then back-pedaled and made a full recount contingent on a "pre-audit". The "pre-audit" was assigned to the company which had run the election, along with a warning that if it turned out the election was flawed, their final payment would be withheld by the State of Hawaii. Needless to say the pre-audit found no errors in the election, and despite the urging of the Voter Integrity Project (which was conducting its own investigation) the full recount was canceled. The voting company, ES&S was again been awarded the voting contract for the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections, without any open bidding.

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICL ... index.html

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 Aug 2010 12:45

Pranav wrote: Prof. David Dill, Stanford University, one of the best known electronic voting security expert contested the ECI’s claims that it has administrative safeguards and checks and balances that make EVMs “fully tamper proof”. He said, “all voting systems that have been claimed to be secure have been proved to be insecure. And all systems that have been alleged to be insecure by critics have been proved to be insecure.”

Let me go one further than the good professor, "All systems are insecure. Period". Unfortunately by making statements such as the above, he is being a bit disingenuous - maybe he needs to carry his statement to its natural conclusion namely, don't have any voting systems whatsoever (manual, electronic or djinn powered)!

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 12 Aug 2010 13:54

Raja Bose wrote:
Pranav wrote: Prof. David Dill, Stanford University, one of the best known electronic voting security expert contested the ECI’s claims that it has administrative safeguards and checks and balances that make EVMs “fully tamper proof”. He said, “all voting systems that have been claimed to be secure have been proved to be insecure. And all systems that have been alleged to be insecure by critics have been proved to be insecure.”
Let me go one further than the good professor, "All systems are insecure. Period". Unfortunately by making statements such as the above, he is being a bit disingenuous - maybe he needs to carry his statement to its natural conclusion namely, don't have any voting systems whatsoever (manual, electronic or djinn powered)!

Count and compare the number of complicit individuals required per rigged vote in each system, also looking at who appoints those individuals.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 21 Aug 2010 07:00

FLASH……….

In a dramatic move, Hari Prasad, Technical Coordinator of VeTA has been arrested by Maharashtra Police this morning in Hyderabad at the insistence of the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The arrest was made on the unsubstantiated and atrocious charge that the EVM used for exposing EVM vulnerabilities was "stolen" when in fact it was made available by a local official for research purposes.

VeTA condemns this vengeful action by the ECI and advises the ECI restraint. In the past, the ECI had never taken any stringent action when over a hundred (perhaps several hundreds) EVMs have been stolen in various states.

VeTA condemns this intimidation tactics of the ECI. VeTA hopes saner counsel will prevail in the ECI and it would go after criminals hacking democracy and not those trying to save it by exposing EVM vulnerabilities.

The latest move by the ECI to persecute the whistle blowers reveals the “fascist” face of the Election Commission of India and its utter incompetence in improving the voting system in the wake of exposure of EVM vulnerabilities.

The arrest is contrary to the assurance by the ECI deputy election commissioner Ashok Shukla at the workshop on trustworthy elections in Washington D.C on August 9 when Prof. Alex Halderman, a co-researcher who exposed EVM vulnerabilities along with Hari Prasad clashed with him over the issue of police’s questioning of Hari Prasad.

The good news is that Hari Prasad remains totally unfazed. He has in fact declined to apply for an anticipatory bail to evade arrest as he says, “we have done no wrong. We have done this (EVM exposure) in public interest. We will face whatever are the consequences.”

I would request all of you who disapprove of the ECI’s intimidation attempts to speak up against this brutal action.

Please write to me briefly (30 to 100 words) what you think of this action. We will display it on our campaign website http://www.indianEVM.com

NARASIMHA RAO

PRESIDENT, VeTA

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 21 Aug 2010 09:43

Pranav wrote:FLASH……….

In a dramatic move, Hari Prasad, Technical Coordinator of VeTA has been arrested by Maharashtra Police this morning in Hyderabad at the insistence of the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The arrest was made on the unsubstantiated and atrocious charge that the EVM used for exposing EVM vulnerabilities was "stolen" when in fact it was made available by a local official for research purposes.

EVMs are not he property of "local officials". Their storage and use is regulated by ECI. SO the official has acted beyond brief, if at all, and Hari Prasad , prima facie , is to be charged with theft etc. He should have obtained approval of ECI before doing all this. Sooner or later that local official will be sharing the barrack with Hari Prasad.

I , personally, don't think EVMs can be manipulated in the manner described by them. Too many variables and too much investment required across large number of booths. Recent results does not indicate fraud in the process.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 21 Aug 2010 10:00

Who was the guy who posted on this thread - was it this man, Hari Prasad???

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 21 Aug 2010 10:02

Raja Bose wrote:Who was the guy who posted on this thread - was it this man, Hari Prasad???

I think yes

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 21 Aug 2010 11:06

With the ECI becoming desperate enough to arrest Hari Prasad, it's crystal clear now that the EVMs are junk and were used to influence 2009 election results. They wouldn't have to go to such lenghts if they had a legitimate defence.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 21 Aug 2010 11:26

chaanakya wrote: I , personally, don't think EVMs can be manipulated in the manner described by them. Too many variables and too much investment required across large number of booths. Recent results does not indicate fraud in the process.

Controlling the govt is sufficient motivation for political elites to go to extreme lengths. And there is quite some evidence of fraud having taken place. Take a look at GVLNR's book at http://www.indianevm.com/book_democracy ... k_2010.pdf .

Also, rigging does not need action at every both ... see the concise analysis at https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AQN9 ... NkNg&hl=en .

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 21 Aug 2010 11:43

I condemn the move by ECI. What Hari Prasad had done was 'ethical hacking', and nothing wrong with that. In fact, his efforts had helped a lot to disprove the whole lot of absurd theories and scenarios proposed by the anti-EVM lot. I hope that better sense prevails, and he be released as soon as possible.

IMHO, ECI had been stuck to the British era tactics, which doesn't do any good for anybody. Too much inertia I guess.

Hari Prasad was someone who essentially supported EVMs. He wanted to address the vulnerabilities, and free them from the silly allegations. He was not among the crowd that chanted 'down with evil EVM'. I totally agree with him on that.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 21 Aug 2010 11:57

The letter given below was send after a panel discussion on Indian EVMs held at USENIX conference on Aug 9th, 2010 at Washington DC, USA. For additional information, contact Alex Halderman, [email protected], 609-558-2312.

Letter is also available at: http://www.usenix.org/events/evtwote10/ ... er-eci.pdf
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wardman Park Hotel
Washington, D.C.
August 12, 2010

Dr. S.Y. Quraishi, Chief Election Commissioner
Election Commission of India
Nirvachan Sadan
Ashoka Road, New Delhi-110001

Dear Dr. Quraishi:

We, the undersigned participants in the 2010 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop / Workshop on Trustworthy Elections (EVT/WOTE), had the privilege to attend a panel discussion on the state of India’s electronic voting machines (EVMs). We greatly appreciate the participation of Dr. Alok Shukla, Deputy Election Commissioner, and Prof. P.V. Indiresan, Chairman of the Expert Committee, who were joined by G.V.L. Narasimha Rao of VeTA and Prof. J. Alex Halderman of the University of Michigan. We were fascinated to learn about the complexities and challenges of conducting elections in the world’s largest democracy, and about the Election Commission’s accomplishments in this regard. However, as experts in electronic voting technology and computer security, we have significant concerns about the security, verifiability, and transparency of India’s EVMs.

Although India’s EVMs have a simple design that avoids many of the problems found in other direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines, they are still vulnerable to a wide range of attacks. New classes of attacks have been discovered since the time the EVMs were introduced that render many of their security assumptions obsolete. Therefore, we conclude, after listening to the arguments of the panelists, that India’s EVMs do not today provide security, verifiability, or transparency adequate for confidence in election results.

We urge the Election Commission to explore other forms of voting that are suitable to the Indian context and that do provide adequate transparency, verifiability, and security. Other democracies have adopted and then abandoned DRE voting as science’s understanding of election security has progressed. Our research community has been involved in this process around the world, and you are welcome to draw on our collective experience and expertise as you see fit.

Sincerely,

All affiliations are listed for identification only.

Dr. Ben Adida
Harvard University

Dr. Josh Benaloh
Microsoft Research

Prof. Matt Blaze
University of Pennsylvania

Prof. Mike Byrne
Rice University

Joseph A. Calandrino
Princeton University

Rick Carback
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Stephen Checkoway
University of California, San Diego

Bill Cheswick
AT&T Shannon Labs

Prof. David Dill
Stanford University

Jeremy Epstein
Senior Computer Scientist, SRI International

Ariel J. Feldman
Princeton University

Russell A. Fink
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Prof. Ian Goldberg
University of Waterloo

Dr. Joseph Lorenzo Hall
University of California, Berkeley / Princeton University

Prof. Candice Hoke
Cleveland State University

Harri Hursti
CTO, Clear Ballot Group

Bo Lipari
Founder, New Yorkers for Verified Voting

Neal McBurnett
Election Audits

Dr. Peter G. Neumann
Principal Scientist, SRI International, Computer Science Laboratory

Prof. Ronald L. Rivest
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Prof. Hovav Shacham
University of California, San Diego

Prof. Alan T. Sherman
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Prof. Philip B. Stark
University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Vanessa Teague
University of Melbourne

Prof. Poorvi L. Vora
George Washington University

Prof. Dan Wallach
Rice University Director, ACCURATE [(A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable, and Transparent Elections) is a multi-institution voting research center funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).]

Kai Wang
University of California, San Diego

Luther Weeks
CTVotersCount.org

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 21 Aug 2010 12:00

Dileep wrote: Hari Prasad was someone who essentially supported EVMs. He wanted to address the vulnerabilities, and free them from the silly allegations. He was not among the crowd that chanted 'down with evil EVM'. I totally agree with him on that.

EVMs with voter-verified printed receipts are safe provided there is a box into which the receipts are to be dropped, kept separately, away from the machine.

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 21 Aug 2010 12:12

Pranav wrote:Controlling the govt is sufficient motivation for political elites to go to extreme lengths. And there is quite some evidence of fraud having taken place. Take a look at GVLNR's book at http://www.indianevm.com/book_democracy ... k_2010.pdf .

Also, rigging does not need action at every both ... see the concise analysis at https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AQN9 ... NkNg&hl=en .

What you are quoting is VeTA viewpoint.Such hypothetical scenarios are not enough to prove the point. I would be more worried about the act of stealing legit EVMs as that points to weakness in whole system built around it.

What your analysis of results say after antics of TSR forcing ECI to use paper ballots? Whether it proved that there was , indeed , something wrong and that EVM results were contrary to the results shown by paper ballots?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 21 Aug 2010 12:19

ravi_ku wrote:
Raja Bose wrote:Who was the guy who posted on this thread - was it this man, Hari Prasad???
I think yes

With such actions, ECI is basically turning a technical engineering matter into a stupid dirty political one. Hope Mr. Prasad is released asap with apologies. What he is doing is a great service to the nation but then we have baboons for babus in our country who think with their arse. It feels like nothing fundamental in India has changed - nothing. All the so-called change we boast about is just superficial.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 21 Aug 2010 12:22

chaanakya wrote:
What you are quoting is VeTA viewpoint.Such hypothetical scenarios are not enough to prove the point. I would be more worried about the act of stealing legit EVMs as that points to weakness in whole system built around it.

not hypothetical, many actual incidents in GVLNR's book

What your analysis of results say after antics of TSR forcing ECI to use paper ballots? Whether it proved that there was , indeed , something wrong and that EVM results were contrary to the results shown by paper ballots?

TRS actions may have forced authorities to not rig, since any discrepancy between EVM and paper-ballot would be suspicious. As regards proof, burden of proof is on EVM supporters. That the EVMs are riggable is very clear from refs provided.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 21 Aug 2010 12:49

Update from Hari Prasad:

Dear all, Thanks for ur concern. I am writing from my mobile enroute
mumbai. Its time now far more technical people to pitch in to take up
the issue incase of my long detention. I am not at all worried nor
scared with this kind of tricks from ECI. I came to know because of
tremendous pressure these police had no other option than arresting
me. I expected our new CEC is positive to resolve EVM vulnerabilities
but it seems he even got under pressure to change his stance of what
he promised to us on 10th August... I still believe whatever I have
done is correct and in the national interest and also thankful to the
officer who made available the EVM to us for a brief period..Hope I
can communicate for few more hours..shall be in touch

I love my country

Hari Prasad

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 21 Aug 2010 18:52

Dileep wrote:I condemn the move by ECI. What Hari Prasad had done was 'ethical hacking', and nothing wrong with that. In fact, his efforts had helped a lot to disprove the whole lot of absurd theories and scenarios proposed by the anti-EVM lot. I hope that better sense prevails, and he be released as soon as possible.

IMHO, ECI had been stuck to the British era tactics, which doesn't do any good for anybody. Too much inertia I guess.

Hari Prasad was someone who essentially supported EVMs. He wanted to address the vulnerabilities, and free them from the silly allegations. He was not among the crowd that chanted 'down with evil EVM'. I totally agree with him on that.

daal mein kuch (bahut jyada) kala hai. Otherwise why would they arrest him? All of us (without using any bias idealogical/non-idealogical, technical/non-technical) need to take a deep breath and should see things with a different perspective.

It is pretty clear that Government via ECI has something to hide. Otherwise they wouldn't go this far and give publicity by arresting some senior electronics engineer.

As I wrote in this thread, all that Congress needed was to tamper just 4000 booths. In fact one of my friend has recalculated and put it at 2800 booths.

It is pretty clear that INC has stolen the 2009 election. They are using all sorts of strong-arm-tactics to neutralize their internal and external opposition.

GVLNR - you may be next in line. Watch your back and be safe.

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 22 Aug 2010 08:36

http://eenadu.net/panelhtml.asp?qrystr=htm/panel11.htm

CBN condemning move by EC, saying that it is a mockery of democracy that Hari Prasad was arrested that too in the early morning at 4:30 and so on.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/hyderaba ... vm-ban-385

http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?i ... t&catid=35

did the PTI release something on this?

seems like our "national" "democratic" and "patriotic" media have given it a miss. and the news is being buried.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 22 Aug 2010 22:13

Pranav wrote:The letter given below was send after a panel discussion on Indian EVMs held at USENIX conference on Aug 9th, 2010 at Washington DC, USA. For additional information, contact Alex Halderman, [email protected], 609-558-2312.

Why are foreign countries interested in Indian EVMs