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The Election Commission has now officially taken up the investigation of charges of rigging and fraud through the Electronic Voting Machines.
Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla [Images] is sitting over a major scandal of a possible massive rigging of elections by manipulation of software of the Electronic Voting Machines.
But for the charge levelled by a former Delhi [Images] chief secretary five years senior to him in the Indian Administrative Service cadre, Chawla would have rejected such claims of rigging.
Omesh Saigal, a 1964 batch IAS officer of the Union Territory, stunned him with a presentation to force him to order an inquiry into any possibility of such a rigging.
Chawla is himself a Union Territory cadre IAS of 1969 batch.
Deputy Election Commissioner Balakrishnan has been asked to conduct the inquiry on the basis of a report handed over by Saigal to the CEC, with a software he got developed to show how the elections can be rigged.
Saigal, who is an Indian Institute of Technology alumni, has demanded an urgent check of the programme that runs the EVMs used in elections since 2004.
He demonstrated with his software that its manipulation ensured that one has to just key in a certain code number and that will ensure every fifth vote cast in a particular polling booth goes in favour of a certain candidate.
In his letter to the CEC, Saigal alleged that the software written onto the EVMs has never been checked by the Election Commission ever since these machines were manufactured than 6-7 years back.
His contention is that the EC merely relied on the certificates supplied by the manufacturers, the government-run BEL and ECIL. He alleged that these government firms had subcontracted private parties who actually provided these certificates.
“A public software audit of these machines from time to time, especially after and before an election, was a must to retain the credibility of the elections,” Saigal affirmed, demanding that for the sake of transparency names and ownerships of these private companies must be disclosed, as also the details of the factories where they were actually manufactured.
The records retained in the factories must also be immediately taken over by the EC to prevent any tampering and to facilitate an audit, he said.
He also pointed out how, after nearly two years of deliberation, Germany’s [Images] Supreme Court ruled last March that e-voting was unconstitutional because the average citizen could not be expected to understand the exact steps involved in the recording and tallying of votes. Earlier, Ireland had given up e-voting for similar reasons.
In the United States too, after considerable controversy the Federal Election Commission has come up in 2005 with detailed voting system guidelines which run into more than 400 pages.
Saigal said that it is noteworthy that not a single safeguard mentioned in these guidelines are in place in India.
Saigal said he had gone into all the safeguards built into the e-voting system in India with the help of former colleagues and IT experts and finds it both ‘possible and plausible’ to rig these machines and get a crooked result.
“If the credibility of the electoral process is to be ensured, pre- and post-election checks of the software now fused onto the chips of the EVMs is a must,” Saigal said.
It is not that all the 10 lakh odd machines used in the poll need to be checked. If we take only those booths where one of the candidates has received 75 per cent of the votes and in constituencies where the
margin of the winner is less than 15,000, not more than 7,000-odd machines will need to be checked.
Saigal argued in his report that “if we cannot do this we must revert to the paper ballot.”
“The need for a fair, free and transparent polling system transcends any reasons anyone may have to the contrary,” he added.
Link:http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/jul/04/was-election-2009-rigged.htm
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Was pleasantly surprised today morning. Saw some of them in heart of Chennai city. There was an old temple nearby.. 
The price and involvement of Fox itself made MNIK one of the most hyped movies ... there were fan expectations ...
MNIK made its collection on curiosity factor that did under perform at the box office for the so called 'huge' ...
MNIK was huge movie, made hugely, meant to do huge everywhere.
It was probably most hyped movie of last 20 years(since ...
Achilles... Blasting KANK and MNIK on their domestic gross is like blasting Gadar and D2's overseas gross..
These two movies ...
Quite strange.. Taran reports 16.33 Million USD for MNIK in the international Market and claims highest ever collections in overseas.. ...
I am sure once Gayle and McCullum join,KKR batting will get some boost.Batting is their major worry. 
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It use to be fun site when Mom use to pick "dhaan" from rice and bunch of "Goraiya" would flock ...
Well, I will not get into this but Karan's film will end its run in India between 73-75 crore, ...
That was a BOI ploy doga.rnbdj didnt beat sik opening week.They were with 42 cr for rnbdj for 2 weeks ...
RAJ 3 July 2009
11:42:21 pm
I received sharp reaction from some members when i raised the issue of EVM tampering just after the elections…
Atleast i can say with confidence that i have information of large scale EVM tampering in my state…
Qalandar 4 July 2009
03:38:38 pm
Don’t you think people would have protested if the results were counter to their expectations? We have seen this recently in Iran, and in Kashmir in 1987 when the Congress rigged the elections; also in the late 1960s when the Congress was widely believed to have rigged elections in West Bengal.
In the US, despite years of scare articles and litigations, the electronic machines were deemed safe and reliable. This isn’t to say we don’t need better safeguards in India (we do, independent of electronic machines; after all, in the pre-EVM era there were numerous reports of booth-capturing in every election, and that is one form of rigging that isn’t possible in the EVM-era), but where are the allegations of large-scale rigging? (There have been specific reports in specific places, as there are in every election (e.g. Kamal Nath’s election is being challenged), but not nation-wide) If Election 2009 was indeed rigged, it must be the first rigged election in history where even the opposition has not made this charge — must say the BJP’s introspection (which I hope the Left also follows) is a waste of time if the party feels that the election was simply rigged.
Qalandar 4 July 2009
03:40:09 pm
Re: “Saigal said he had gone into all the safeguards built into the e-voting system in India with the help of former colleagues and IT experts and finds it both ‘possible and plausible’ to rig these machines and get a crooked result.”
If shown, this would be an irrefutable argument for improving the system — but it is by itself no evidence that such rigging has already taken place (and in most cases isn’t even alleged by the losing party).
RAJ 4 July 2009
11:59:08 pm
Qalander,
“”"But where are the allegations of large-scale rigging? “”
In my state(Orissa),in most of the constitunecies even the winning candidates are surprised to see their margin of victory….I heard(From reliable sources of the establishment) well before the polling that there would be EVM manipulation like “”whoever you vote the machine ‘ll direct it to only one symbol”" ,”"like starting the counting from 1000 instead of zero”" etc…Although these all has to be investigated and authenticated…
I met several candidates of my state(Now rulling party) who were so sure of their victory inspite of fragile ground conditions…In a particular seat the BJD candidate got 82,000 votes where the 2nd best candidate(Congress) got merely 10,000 votes ,which is a Congress bastion over the years…
These kind of incidents gives rise to suspicion…Even the Opposition parties in my state(Congress and BJP) have alleged of EVM tampering in Press Conferences…
RAJ 5 July 2009
12:05:50 am
“”"If Election 2009 was indeed rigged, it must be the first rigged election in history where even the opposition has not made this charge — must say the BJP’s introspection (which I hope the Left also follows) is a waste of time if the party feels that the election was simply rigged.”
Qalander,
Its hard to believe that the entire 2009 election is rigged….But as you pointed that specific instances have happned and it is been used by every political party in their respective states….Its not party specific…It might be a solid reason why political parties have not debated it on a national scale..
But in a fragmented polity of our country even 5 pct manipulation can throw surprising results in one way or other…So this is high time the Election Commission investigate the entire thing in a objective manner raising above the party line and upgrade the system to strenthen our democracy…
Gorilla 5 July 2009
12:19:28 am
L K Advani in a press conference today has asked EC to do away with EVM as it is not ‘fullproof’. He has requested to go back to the paper voting starting with the state elections in Maharashtra.
Qalandar 5 July 2009
08:31:30 am
The other thing people need to focus on in every election is voter rolls. In the US, this was where a lot of unfair practices were happening over the years, and it has taken years of effort and activism and pressure to clean things up. In India, most people are so busy celebrating the mere fact of the elections that no-on focuises on how unknown numbers of people are stricken off the rolls, etc. Experience from other countries shows that this is disproportionately likely to happen to poorer/less educated voters, and/or those from historically marginalized or “disfavored” groups. In fact, in 2009 even a celebrity like Kamal Haasan found that his name had accidentally been struck off and he couldn’t vote!
RAJ 6 July 2009
11:26:50 pm
Qalander,
Even i couldnt find my name in the voter list…