'After a month of working on the new machine, I realised that the black glass on the VVPAT lets the programmer manipulate not just the electronic system, but the paper vote too.'
'And it will not be detected even during the mock poll or the actual voting because of the black glass.'
The Supreme Court, on April 16, 2024 while hearing petitions seeking 100% cross-verification of votes cast through VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) said, 'The problem arises when there is human intervention that makes unauthorised changes when they are around the software or the machine.'
As people's trust over EVMs (Electronic Voting Machine) wanes and the debate on whether can be manipulated or not rages on, Rahul Mehta, an alumnus of IIT-Delhi, developed an EVM to demonstrate that the machines could be manipulated.
Mehta demonstrated that how the EVM and VVPAT (VVPAT unit produces a paper slip that is visible to the voter on the transparent screen for about seven seconds) can be manipulated.
Before the interview, Mehta, who is also president of the Right to Recall Party, showed Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier how the machine can be manipulated.
"The only solution is giving the option of ballot paper to the voter," insists Rahul Mehta.
When did you start getting the suspicion that EVMs could be manipulated?
The first anti-EVM article I wrote was in 1989 in the college magazine when I was a 4th year student at IIT-Delhi after reading reports that 19% of EVMs were defective from day 1.
In 2003 when I came to know that EVMs would be used all over India, we started the EVM Hatao movement.
That's because the manipulation can as simple as putting a remote control inside the machine to change any number of votes.
In 2011, I gave a demonstration that the machine can be manipulated. The Supreme Court sat on this issue for another two-and-a-half years and said in 2013 that there should be VVPAT. But even in 2017, only 5% booths had paper VVPAT.
I started thinking how the paper vote shown in VVPAT could be manipulated. But I could not find out for 8 years.
In 2019, a friend of mine sent me pictures of the new EVM plus VVPAT saying they looked different. Yes, they looked different, and it took me some time to notice that the glass colour had changed.
What I saw in 2014 had a transparent ordinary glass, but the one we saw in 2019 had black glass.
After a month of working on the new machine, I realised that the black glass on the VVPAT lets the programmer manipulate not just the electronic system, but the paper vote too. And it will not be detected even during the mock poll or the actual voting because of the black glass.
Remember in 2014 itself, it was shown that electronic votes could be manipulated.
In 2019, I found that even the paper vote also could be manipulated in such a way that nobody would suspect any foul play.
But it took me 8 years to find out how paper manipulation in the VVPAT could be done.
So, in my opinion the proposal asking for 100% counting of VVPAT slips is ridiculous.
Why do you think the Election Commission changed the transparent glass to black?
I have no idea. They have not answered my questions.
Even in the 200 FAQs on VVPAT, it was not mentioned that they had installed a black glass.
There are two glasses in VVPAT: One glass in the front and another glass behind the glass. The effect of these two glasses is that a voter will not be able to see whether there is a paper behind the glass. Only when the light inside is turned on can the voter see the paper.
The interesting thing is, no political party objected to it when the Election Commission changed the glass. I have shown this to all political parties, but they showed no interest. No Supreme Court lawyer showed any interest.
It was only in April 2024 when appearing for Association for Democratic Reforms that Prashant Bhushan told the court, 'It had to be a transparent glass, but it was changed to dark opaque mirror glass where it is only visible when the light is on for 7 seconds.'
Do you think the political parties didn't react because of ignorance?
I would say, deliberate ignorance!
I have shown this demo to a large number of senior political leaders across all parties from December 2019 onwards.
I will go on to say that every political party supported EVMs and EVM black glass. Their opposition to EVM is only lip service.
The pro-EVM lobby floods YouTube and social media with so much news that real news does not get noticed.
Today, even the Supreme Court judges had to accept that EVMs could be manipulated.
Technical experts across the world have demonstrated that the electronic part of the machine is not reliable.
That's why countries that had tried the electronic machine went back to paper ballots...
But in India, this is still going on.
The Election Commission in India has been saying from 2017 that elections in India have not been conducted with EVMs alone and but with paper ballots also as VVPAT has paper inside.
But the voter does not get to touch the paper, she or he can only see it. The voter doesn't get a chance to put it in a box.
Who took the decision not to give the paper slip from VVPAT to the voter? The Congress party in 2013.
IMAGE: Rahul Mehta. Photograph: Kind courtesy Rahul MehtaThe Congress took the decision that the paper slip should directly fall into the box.
The fact is, you have to redesign the whole machine if you want to give the slip to the voter.
So, what can be done to stop possible manipulation of EVMs-VVPATs?
The only solution is giving the option of ballot paper to the voter.
In every constituency, there about 20 lakh (2 million) voters, 10,000 to 15,000 voters use postal ballots. It means the paper ballot design is already there with the collector. All s/he has to do is print 20 lakh instead of 10,000-15,000 ballot papers.
Also, panchayat and municipal elections use paper ballots.
It means the government staff has all the experience to handle paper ballots and ballot boxes.
In such a scenario, why do we need EVMs at all?
We don't need EVMs at all.
Right now, my proposal is that you give the option of EVMs or paper ballot to the voter. If s/he has faith in the EVM, let her/him use the EVM. If not, let the voter use paper ballot.
The EVM that they use is useless as the black glass helps in manipulation.
A recent survey found that 50% of the people polled did not have faith in EVMs...
In the surveys we have conducted, we have found that more than 70% of the people do not trust the EVMs.
But the Supreme Court says it does not trust private opinion polls.
What prevents the government or the court from conducting a survey on whether people trust EVMs or not?
So, in your opinion, we should go back to ballot papers?
Yes. But we need to modify the ballot papers to stop invalid votes.
Now that we have NOTA, the number of invalid votes will decrease.
Another modification that needs to be done is the border space between two candidates should be thick so that the ink stain will not spill over.
There should be CCTV cameras in all the booths.
Also, counting can be done right after you finish the day's voting. If it happens, there will be no movement of ballot boxes.
I will go on to say that ballot papers are cheaper than EVMs.
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
