05-30-2009, 04:40 AM
<b>Rajeev Srinivasan about EVM </b>
The Indian voter is not stupid, and is exquisitely sensitive to things that affect his wallet. Therefore it is a little surprising that the average voter drank the UPA's Kool-Aid.
There is, of course, the possibility that the average voter did not in fact fall for the UPA's charms, and that this election was subject to massive fraud. I am talking about Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). Having spent many years in the high-tech world, I do not trust computers, especially embedded systems. Researchers in the US have shown how easy it is to break into EVMs, which is why they have not adopted them. They have realised how important it is to have a paper audit trail, hanging chads and all.
It would not be extraordinarily difficult to install a programme with a Trojan Horse in it. To outward appearances and to ordinary testing, the programme would appear normal. However, when it is fed a sequence of keystrokes by the agent of the party committing the fraud, the Trojan Horse wakes up, and then, regardless of what buttons the voter actually presses, it can assign a certain (non-suspicious-looking) percentage (not 90% but, say 45%) to the preferred party. The Trojan Horse can even be programmed to quietly delete itself when the voting is over. Nobody would know any better, as there is no paper trail.
Let me emphasise that I do not have any evidence that this happened in 2009, but it is worth investigating. There were too many surprising -- almost miraculous -- victories by certain candidates whom the casual observer would have written off. By Occam's Razor, the simplest explanation is fraud. I would like to note in passing that in 2004, expecting the NDA to commit fraud, an Indian Communist in the US had prepared a suit alleging EVM fraud. Therefore it is clear that the thought has occurred to various people that there could be EVM fraud.
http://election.rediff.com/column/2009/may...her-stories.htm
The Indian voter is not stupid, and is exquisitely sensitive to things that affect his wallet. Therefore it is a little surprising that the average voter drank the UPA's Kool-Aid.
There is, of course, the possibility that the average voter did not in fact fall for the UPA's charms, and that this election was subject to massive fraud. I am talking about Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). Having spent many years in the high-tech world, I do not trust computers, especially embedded systems. Researchers in the US have shown how easy it is to break into EVMs, which is why they have not adopted them. They have realised how important it is to have a paper audit trail, hanging chads and all.
It would not be extraordinarily difficult to install a programme with a Trojan Horse in it. To outward appearances and to ordinary testing, the programme would appear normal. However, when it is fed a sequence of keystrokes by the agent of the party committing the fraud, the Trojan Horse wakes up, and then, regardless of what buttons the voter actually presses, it can assign a certain (non-suspicious-looking) percentage (not 90% but, say 45%) to the preferred party. The Trojan Horse can even be programmed to quietly delete itself when the voting is over. Nobody would know any better, as there is no paper trail.
Let me emphasise that I do not have any evidence that this happened in 2009, but it is worth investigating. There were too many surprising -- almost miraculous -- victories by certain candidates whom the casual observer would have written off. By Occam's Razor, the simplest explanation is fraud. I would like to note in passing that in 2004, expecting the NDA to commit fraud, an Indian Communist in the US had prepared a suit alleging EVM fraud. Therefore it is clear that the thought has occurred to various people that there could be EVM fraud.
http://election.rediff.com/column/2009/may...her-stories.htm