Electronic voting machines and keeping elections above question

When a journalist asked President-elect Joe Biden, 'What will you say during your inaugural address to the Americans who did not vote for you?' he said, 'I am an American President. I represent all of you, either you voted for me or against me. I am going to make sure you are represented'. 

This culture of thanking voters who did not vote for the leader is more than just about generosity. If you are a prime minister or a president, you cannot identify and differentiate those who did not vote for you from those who did. That is the beauty of a traditional paper-ballot voting system. 

But the usage of paper-ballot systems has waned over time and have been replaced by electronic voting machines (EVM). But these machines have also been a subject of controversy. 

Former Deputy Prime Minister of India and one of the co-founders of BJP, Lal Krishna Advani even wrote a foreword to a book titled "Democracy at Risk! Can we trust our Electronic Voting Machines?" Funnily enough, the BJP identifies criticism of EVM as propaganda. But what is the rationale behind the doubts and controversies surrounding EVM?

A threat to the idea of secret voting 

Firstly, the digital traceability of voters is a serious concern under EVM. In a traditional voting system, it is hard to differentiate voters based on their selection. The word 'ballot' comes from the Italian 'ballotta', which means a 'small ball' that was used in secret voting. 

The origin of the word signifies that ballot is synonymous with secret voting. It also indicates that the anonymity of a voter is essential for democracy. 

If leaders around the world could identify who voted for them or against them, and generosity of thanking a group of people who did not want them to win could become nonexistent. 

Only a few countries use EVM

Only 9 countries in the world use EVM in national elections, they are – Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Estonia, India, Philippines, the United Arab Emirates and the United States of America.

Though the USA is on the list, its vote casting system is not similar to other countries. Depending upon the voting station, voters use different types of voting machines. In other words, the election process does not depend on a single vote counting mechanism.

However, Argonne National Lab (The first National Science and Engineering Laboratory in the United States) has shown how a device can be tampered with to manipulate the results without attacking the microprocessor or the software. It shows, even in a technologically advanced nation, the electronic vote-counting system remains questionable. 

Infographic: TBS

Many countries stopped electronic voting

In 2009, using these devices were declared unconstitutional in Germany. Ireland stopped using it after a failure in 2004. Kazakhstan stopped using it in 2004. Since 2007, the Netherlands has not used machines either. Norway has stopped using it since 2003. Pakistan, the United Kingdom, France once used it, but these countries have stopped using electronic voting machines as well. 

Unconstitutional in Germany 

The use of electronic voting was challenged in the court by a father-and-son team. Political scientist Joachim Wiesner and his son, physicist Ulrich Wiesner pointed out that push-button voting was not transparent because the voter could not see what happened to his vote inside the computer and was required to have 'blind faith' in the technology. 

Germany ended electronic voting in 2009, with the German Federal Constitutional Court holding that the inability to have meaningful public scrutiny meant that electronic voting was unconstitutional. 

The court expressed that it is essential to have 'public examinability' in the voting process. Considering the public nature of voting the constitutional court of Germany struck down the law (Federal Voting Machines Ordinance) that authorises electronic voting. However, the court left a scope to bring it back only if examinability can be ensured. 

Security issues around the world

The Hindu interviewed Professor Poorvi Vora from the Department of Computer Science, The George Washington University and published the interview on 8th July 2017, where she said, Electronic Voting Machines cannot be perfectly secure. 

She pointed out the fact that the computer chips in the hardware can be replaced with others at any time in the entire life cycle of the EVM, and these chips can be designed to do something other than report the correct vote count.

She suggested that it is also possible to make the device respond to a particular code or combination of button presses entered into the EVM, like — first button, then seventh button, then eight, etc. 

This combination of button presses could come from real voters who are waiting in line, allowing EVMs to behave perfectly when tested and to misbehave once they receive the signal to do so. 

The Economic Times published a report on 28th February 2017 about the disappearance of votes in an election in India when an independent candidate got zero votes. 

The candidate has told the press that he and his family members also voted for him but those votes were not counted in the electronic voting machine. 

The Guardian published a report on 22nd August 2018 titled 'Kids at hacking conference show how easily US elections could be sabotaged. 

This report has mentioned J Alex Halderman, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan who demonstrated two direct attacks on an electronic voting machine, stealing a mock election in front of an audience. 

It is fast – for whom? 

Since the device is digital, it is easy to manipulate. If a criminal or a mafia group gets an insignificant amount of time to manipulate the result, that's enough to make sure their favourite candidate wins. 

These devices can cause more delay than paper ballots at busy times since every voter needs access to a machine by following a procedure. Standing in a line takes time and a voter has to spend roughly the same time with a machine as they do with a ballot box.

The imaginable advantage of holding an election with EVM can be counted by the fingers of one hand – less paper wastage, instant result, safe, non-manipulatable etc. 

These are the best possible advantages, which seems to be scarcely advantageous in reality. If those benefits were material, most of the democratic countries would be using them in every election. A nation, every four to five years, depends on an election. The method to get elected and form a government should remain proven and unquestionable. 

Saiful Bari is a student at the Department of Law and Human Rights, The University of Asia Pacific. 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.