To
The Cheif Election Commissioner,
We believe you should follow up the declaration of results of the Assembly Elections in Haryana, Oct 2024, with the release of the following data to ensure that not only has your institution conducted elections freely and fairly but also can be seen to have done so. “Constituency-wise data covering:
1. Votes polled by the top 5 candidates; candidate wise with party affiliation if any; as per the EVM count.
2. Votes polled by the very same top 5 candidates with party affiliation if any; as per the count from the VVPAT.
3. Total votes polled as per EVM
4. Total votes polled as per VVPAT
5. Total voters in the register eligible for voting as per records immediately prior to the elections.
6. Votes polled as per Form 17C booth wise.”
As you would know there has been much discussion and claims of biases with the use of the EVM system, and in the conduct of the elections, in the media and elsewhere, and we need to be assured that these are not true.The VVPAT system at great cost was set up given the constitutional requirement that the citizen needs to be assured that his vote as he sees is what is counted. Your sampling of 2 EVMs per constituency. So, counting the VVPAT is a requirement from the point of view of the Constitutional assurance to citizens, and from the point of fairness. Recall that the 2 EVMs per constituency was based on the probability (very low) of manufacturing failures; and not on the possibility of purposeful insertion of mis-functionality in the EVM system. And that possibility is no longer what it used to be because:
1. Beyond the First Level Checks (FLCs) and the checks on the date of voting, there are no checks that you/ your office conducts with regard to EVMs. Citizens have to lay their trust on you, as you have been laying your trust on the ECIL and BELs manufacturing processes, on their procurement of both hardware and software, and on the Expert Committees, development of the source codes. Your trust is no longer tenable, since inter alia, the ECIL and BEL have party members of the BJP (the government of the day) on their boards. Your own vast experience as an administrator would tell you that Indian PSUs have little autonomy, and the government of the day has the ability to influence their decisions. Their CEOs are entirely beholden to the government of the day.
2. The safety protocols with the ECIL and BEL are designed from the stand point of developing commercial software and hardware, where the incentive to corrupt (hacking) comes from outside, and from within (but not at the highest level). However, in the case of EVM manufacture, this is not the case. The issue is not of such hacking but of the design itself having a mis-functionality. The incentive to do so can arise at the highest level under the pressure of the government of the day.
3. All governments have a strong incentive to affect voting systems in their favour. To rule out the same/ create systems that are robust against this possibility, modern mature democracies, have constitutional \high level legal processes to distance the conduct of polls from the administration in very significant ways. Firstly, the bodies that conduct such elections are Commissions with their own vast power, and period of office that go beyond the pleasure of the government of the day. Fixed tenures rule. Perhaps most importantly the choice of the leader of such Commissions is made through a process that is fair to the opposition; i.e. the choice cannot be made against the concurrence of the opposition. Judicial appointments by an independent judiciary are another way. You would agree that, recently, the process of appointment of the Election Commissioners have happened without the ability of the opposition to have a say in the choice. Moreover, one of the appointed Commissioners chose to resign almost immediately after being appointed. Everybody knows that senior appointments such as those of secretaries and commissioners cannot happen without their concurrence, so that the citizens are left to wonder why the resignations took place. Personal reasons cold not have been credible in this case. Secondly, many mature democracies have chosen paper ballots for national level elections since in this case the probability of there being wholesale distortion is practically nil. This is so because such wholesale distortion would require that far too many booths have been controlled by the government of the day, and many numbers in administration to be in cahoots with the government of the day. A few booths / centers failing would be observable (visible to the public in this day of immediate flow of information and intense communication) and so would be correctible in a variety of ways including reelections in particular areas. In contrast EVMs can be corrupted wholesale (i.e. all EVMs) through their manufacturing /design / procurement process. Therefore, in case the Indian EVMs have been designed to be mis-functional, then entire elections are called into question.
4. You may say that your FLCs, and checking by the ECI, and mock voting on the days of elections are adequate. But are they? Imagine for a moment that a rogue has been introduced into every machine (M3) which has the (dis)-functionality of biasing the count in favour of a favoured candidate. Neither you or your office can assure us with any conviction that such a rogue is absent in the EVM system, since the process is not in your control. The one question you could raise is: “how does the rogue which candidate is the favoured one, since the candidate sequence is entirely by alphabetical order of names?”. This to our mind is possible in two ways: (1) The VVPAT holds the symbol of the candidate. Candidates of the same party have the same symbol. Thus, the VVPAT has the graphic for the Lotus or the Hand which are symbols of the BJP and the Congress respectively. With this symbol the VVPAT (a complex machine whose design and construction parameters are unknown and therefore we are forced to accept its correctness on faith) can easily pass on the information to the EVM which its rogue can pick up. (2) Alternatively, even without the VVPAT, the rogue could have the (mis)-functionality of having the feature of identifying the candidate that gets the majority of (say) the first five votes as the favoured candidate. Once this is known the rogue could tilt the results in favour of this (favoured) candidate by say a bias of a mere 5%. As you would easily appreciate, such a bias is good enough to give the favoured candidate a significantly higher chance of winning the elections in a first past the post system that we have. Now all that the party in question, which knows that such a rogue exists or has been planted needs to do is to ask its dedicated voters to be the first to cast their votes. That would prime all machines with the bias. Neither the FLCs nor the mock voting even of votes up to 1500 being cast and checked would reveal such a mis-functionality since actual counting happens typically many days after polling: The fact that the EVM M3 machines have a clock (they are no longer simple as claimed in your many official videos and FAQs), the rogue can have the (mis)-functionality to exercise the bias only when queried say 3 days after the close of voting on the machine and not if queried immediately or on the same day. Mock voting and all tests on the machine would not reveal such a feature, and therefore the rogue can hide successfully. Above all you have been saying that the EVMs are perfect. We are pointing out the possibility that there could be serious flaws in the overall process of EVM design, manufacture and their use. There is little that we the people of India have to accept your assurance except on faith. But as you will appreciate robust systems have to be systemically robust, not good out of the goodwill of individuals, or on faith or trust. This is especially so in the conduct of elections, in a democracy.
5. A simple way to assure that the elections in recent times have not been plagued by such built in mis-functionality is to count the VVPATs and report the same constituency wise, in the recent two elections – The national elections of 2024 and the Haryana elections of Oct 2024. The printed VVPAT slips as they fell into the sealed box would have had the correct symbol printed, since otherwise there would have been large numbers of complaints by voters. We believe that such counting should be done for all the VVPATs. The argument that this takes time and money is quite incorrect, since the marginal time and cost of doing so is very little. The VVPAT slips can be counted in the presence of representative of the “winning party/candidate” in the constituency and a representee of at least one other candidate who came second or third. This process can be adopted for both the General Elections and the recently concluded Haryana Assembly elections.
6. Your office has also ruled out any destructive testing, any falsifiability tests, any examination of the source code, compilation, machine details. Nor is there any parallel process of designing and manufacturing EVMs etc within the ECIL and BEL to give any assurance of mis-design from the top.
Mr Chief Election Commissioner, we wish to raise the fundamental issue of the legality of using EVMs for voting, as referred to earlier. In addition to EVMs, a technological black box, not permitting the voter to have the satisfaction of personally satisfying himself/herself, that the vote cast has been actually registered in the ballot system, in the absence of totalisers in the use of EVMs, the booth wise secrecy of voting is not ensured, permitting political parties and their candidates intimidating the voters, especially in view of some political parties, senior public functionaries resorting to hate speeches, divisive statements and open intimidation of sections of voters.
Independent technical experts have pointed out that the EVM-VVPAT system can be manipulated and the least that the Commission ought to have done is to address this by ordering a 100% cross-verification of the EVM count vis-a-vis the VVPAT count, preferably in the case of all EVMs, or at least in the case of all such constituencies where the margin of win is less than 10%. The Commission should also come clean on whether the EVMs and VVPAT machines are “paired” electronically, as it is an indispensable requirement to ensure that the machines are not moved surreptitiously.
The members of the so-called “independent” technical expert committee on whose inputs that the Commission seems to depend entirely in its obstinate defence of the infallibility of the EVM technology are co-owners of the patent taken by BEL for the EVM-VVPAT system.
Mr Chief Election Commissioner, we wish to remind you and your other two colleagues that the apex court of India time and again has held that Article 324 of the Constitution provides a “reservoir of authority” for the Commission to invoke it at any time to conduct elections in a free and fair manner and if the Commission fails to use it when necessary, as in the case of the EVMs, on the efficacy of which several political parties and the public al large have expressed serious doubts, it would amount to the Commission committing a breach of its Constitutional mandate and a breach of the trust that the public repose in it. As Gandhiji said, “There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts………“to forgive and accept injustice is cowardice”
We feel that the Commission cannot afford to be non-responsive to the doubts on the efficacy of EVMs expressed by several political parties, technical experts and concerned citizens. It should know that no technology is 100% infallible and for the Commission to continue to be obstinate in deifying that technology is unacceptable.
Hence our five-point plea, in the interest of this great democracy that is India. You owe this to the citizens of India.
With thanks
Yours sincerely
Copy to: The President of India
Signed by:
1. A R vasavi- Professor
2. Arul Edwin Raj
3. C. Kashyap- Research Scholar, I.I.T. BHU
4. M. Arun Richard- Former P.G Assistant, Carmel HSS
5. Abdul Hameed A
6. Aditi Mehta – IAS Retd
7. Aditya Mukherjee – Professor of Contemporary History’ (retired))
8. Alex Noronha
9. Alice Morris – Independent Researcher
10. AlickR D – CPI(M)
11. Amalan- Teacher , Boys Town
12. Amit Sharma- Manager, SBI
13. Amudhan RP- Filmmaker
14. Ananda Muni Rajan M – Advocate, K
15. Anjal
16. Anjalose R- Chartered Accountant
17. Anto Raja Prakash J- Software engineer
18. Antony Ravi J- Social Activist
19. Archana Kaul- Secretary, Srijanatmak Manushi Sanstha (SMS )
20. Arulmony T- Coordinator, Street welfare organisation -South Mada street .
21. Arun Kumar- Teacher
22. Asha Mishra- General Secretary, All India People’s Science Network(AIPSN)
23. Ashok Kumar Kalra- Retired Govt Employee
24. Ashok Rindani- Retired Bank officer, State Bank Of India
25. Ashok Sharma- IFS (Retd.)
26. Baburaya V Pai- Retired Bank officer, Canara Bank
27. Bhukta Chandu Naik – District secretary, Telangana Rythu Sangham
28. Biswajit Ghatak- Retired Bank Employee, Bank Employees’ Federation of India
29. Bodhisattya Roy
30. Bowden Moreira- Retired, PSB
31. Cedric Prakash- Human Rights, Reconciliation & Peace Activist/ Writer
32. Chaman Lal – Retired Professor JNU (Retd)
33. Charles J- Engineer, Hexaware technologies
34. Chhotey Lal Maurya- Retired Bank officials, Allahabad Bank Kanpur
35. Chinmay Mishra- President, Madhya Pradesh Sarvoday Mandal
36. CS – Ceo, Juniper
37. D B Maheshwar- Insurance
38. Deepa Charley- Bank Officer, Indian Bank
39. Deepak Sanan- Retired civil servant
40. Devidas Tuljapurkar-General Secretary, Maharashtra State Bank Employees Federation
41. Dinesh Abrol- Professor, TRCSS JNU
42. Dr Akhileshwari RamagoudJournalist cum Academic (Retired)
43. Dr Anis Ansari IAS(r)- National Working President, Bharat Sevak Samaj
44. Dr Intaj Malek- Advocate
45. Dr P A Azeez- Freelancer
46. Dr Palakh Jain
47. Sudhir Vombatkere
48. Tarun Yadav- Doctor
49. E A S Sarma- Former Secretary, GOI
50. Emil Kandulna- Editor , Sajha Sangharsh (E-magazine), Sajha Sangharsh Social Development & Research Forum
51. Ephrem Sengol- Social worker, Cluny Social Service Centre
52. Eric Pinto- Member, Civil Society Goa, NAPM Goa
53. FIrdausi Hydrie- Retired
54. Florine- Social Worker
55. Francis Martis – Worker, Tasty Bite Eatables ltd
56. Frazer Mascarenhas- Academic Administrator, The Jesuits
57. Ganesan V B- Retired journalist
58. Gautam Mukhopadhaya- Retired Civil Servant
59. George Monippally- Social Activist, Loktantra Bachao Abhiyan, Jharkhand
60. Gi Irudayaraj- Agricultural
61. Gopikumar- Social worker, CITU
62. Gururaj Agnihotri
63. Navis
64. Ira Bhaskar- Professor (Retd.), Jawaharlal Nehru University
65. Isaac – Socialpreneur, NGO
66. Jacob Antony- Retired Civil Servant
67. Jagadish Kumar B- Private Employee
68. Jagdeep Chhokar Professor (Retired)- IIM, Ahmedabad
69. Jasvinder Singh – Nagrik Education
70. Jawhar Sircar – Ex- MP (Rajya Sabha), Former Secretary, Govt of India
71. Jenet- Director, RSSS for women
72. Jerome Gersld Kujur- Secretary,Kendriy Jansangharsh Samiti, Latehar-Gumla, Jharkhand
73. Jerome Morris – IT Professional,Last Organization: Wipro Technologies
74. Jessy- Executive, PDA
75. Joe Athialy- Centre for Financial Accountability
76. Joseph – Director, Amal Associates
77. Joseph Fernando
78. K Vijayamohan- Citizen of TamilNadu, DVK – PERIYARIST
79. Senthamil Selvan – General Counimember, Tamil Nadu Science Forum
80. Kailash Mina- NAPM
81. Kamal Malhotra- Semi-retired
82. Kaniza Garari – Executive Editor, News Meter
83. Kiran Bhardwaj – Housewife
84. Kiran Moghe – President, Pune Zilha Gharkamgar Sanghatana (CITU)
85. Kukkala Chennakeshavulu – General manager, BVSR constructions
86. Lalit Kumar Das – Ex-Head (Retired) Instrument design and Development Centre , IIT Delhi
87. Leena Rai Kalra – Principal, School
88. Lekh Raj madan- General secretary , Adresh Nagar District Congress Committee
89. M G Devasahayam- Former Secretary Govt of Haryana
90. M s. Arabi- Business
91. K. JoshuaSenthilkumar – Pastor, First Sourashtra Church
92. Annadurai – Secretary, Tamilnadu Untouchablity Eradication Front,
93. Madan Pal Singh Kandal – Major General, Indian Army
94. Madhu Bhaduri- Ambassador of India, (Retired)
95. Mahendra Sarma
96. Mahesh Banda- Physician, Banda Medical Centre
97. Maju Varghese
98. Manivannan T- SBI Rtd Officer
99. Manju K
100. Manoj Kumar V – Supervisor, BEMLlimited
101. Maria William
102. Mariadasan A- Retired Bank Manager, lexeta academy
103. Meena Gupta – Retd civil servant
104. Mehboob M. Sheikh- Retired, of Gujarat
105. Mervin S Fernando – Cricket Coach, Matrix cricket academy
106. Mini Bedi – Retired
107. Mirza Jahandar Baig – Indian Citizen Secularism
108. Mohammad Huzaifa- Senior Manager , Unicharm
109. Mohammad Sadiq Shaikh
110. Mohammad Safwan
111. Muniza Khan- Social Activist, Gandhian Institue and CJP
112. Nagal- Principal Accountant General RTd, CAG
113. Nagaraju Akepogu
114. Venkataswara Rao – PresidentRTD., EMPLOYEE
115. Najeeb Jung- Former Lt Governor, Delhi (retd)
116. Nandita Sahgal – IAS ( resigned)
117. Naresh Kumar Bhola – Advocate, AIPC, Haryana Chapter
118. Nazeer- Retired
119. ND Jayaprakash – Delhi Science Forum
120. Neelam Ahluwalia
121. Neeta
122. Nikita
123. Natarajan
124. Padmaja Shaw- Rtd Professor
125. Peter
126. Ponniah Rajamanickam – Associate Professor, People’s Science Movement
127. Prabhat Patnaik- Professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University
128. Pradip Biswas- Befi
129. Prakash Louis
130. Prasad Chacko- Secretary, PUCL Gujarat
131. Prasant Paikary- Spoke Person, Anti-Jindal & Anti-POSCO Movement (JPPSS)
132. Prashant Gondal- Director, Gondals Press India Ltd.
133. Praveen Johri
134. Preethi Maroli
135. Rahul Abhilash Shakya – Director, Adore Broking Pvt Ltd
136. Rajiv- A Common Citizen
137. Rajiv Kapoor
138. Rajkul Fulzele
139. Raju Sharma- Retired civil servant
140. Rakesh Nayyar
141. Rama Melkote- Prof retd, Osmania Umiversity Concerned citizens collective
142. Ramanujam R- Retired Govt Official
143. Ramesh Dixit – Professor(retired) Political Science Department Lucknow University.ARTHA
144. Raveendra- Retired supervisor,Beml ltd,KGF BEML Ltd
145. Robin Thankachen
146. Roop Rekha Verma
147. Roy- VP, TSSR
148. S Herald Jesudasan Sither- Farmer
149. S K Mehrotra – Citizen
150. S PaulRaj – AGM Retd, BSNL
151. Mohan Retired – Dy. G.M. (HR) in Air India
152. Gurumoorthy- Retd officer SBI
153. Saba Qadri- Social work, Help Hyderabad
154. Sajan- Business
155. Sanat
156. Sanat Kaul IAS ( retd)- Chairman, International Foundation for Aviation, Aerospace and Drones
157. Sandeep Thomas
158. Sangeetha- Entrepreneur
159. Sathish- Career Counselor, Vedham Tapovan High School
160. Satish- Social Activist, Trade union
161. Satish Malik – CEO, NSM Construction Company
162. Satish Misra – Senior Journalist, Freelancer
163. Sebastian Morris- Retd Prof. IIMA
164. Selva Bagyamani- SMIT Cboi
165. Sermuga Pandian – Retired Accounts Professional, P&T
166. Shaibani – College professor, Central University
167. Shailesh Sakhardanade- Engineer, WSP Consultancy
168. Shalini Urs – Chairperson, MYRA School of Business
169. Shankar Prasad Chatterjee- Retired Government Service, CPIM
170. Sheik Mohideen- Retired, TNEB
171. Shiv- Retiree
172. Sivakumar – Retd govt officer, Indian bank
173. Soham Kalgaonkar- Student, Goa Institute of Management
174. Srikanthan V- Pensioner,LI C of India
175. Subodh Lal- Constitutional Conduct Group
176. Sudha Sundararaman – AIDWA
177. Suguna- Street welfare organization
178. Suma Josson – Filmmaker
179. Sumit Chopra – SVP, Spark Capital
180. Suresh N – Former Jt Secretary, BEFI BEFI
181. Susan John- President, Mahila Swaraj, Kerala
182. Sushil Khanna- Professor ( Retrd), IIM Calcutta
183. Thaagam senguttuvan- Editor, Thaagam
184. Tharsis Leon S- Retired Bank Officer, SBI
185. Thomas Franco- Convener, People First
186. G- Headmaster (Retired)
187. Twisha
188. Urfi Prasad- Retired Bank official, SBI
189. P. Raja Retd.IAS officer- Ex-Chairman, MERC
190. Vijay Kumar – AAP
191. vimalavidya- பேங்க் staff பேங்க் ஆப் இந்தியா
192. Vinod Joshi – E-I-C, Navyug
193. Vivek Monteiro- Secretary, CITU Maharashtra State
194. Vivek Sharma- Manager, Jk organisation
195. Vivek Sundara- Social activist
196. Vivekanand Tripathi
197. Wendel Daniels- The Oak Tree Project
198. Yas- Farmer
199. Yasmeen
200. अखिलेशचन्द्र कश्यप Assistant Professor Saharsa College of Engineering, Saharsa
201. रामानुजतिवारी – भारतीय नागरिक, किसान
