Every technology has a “flaw”: cyber expert Dr Nishikant Ojha on EVMs

As the credibility of the Electronic Voting Machines faces a big question mark amid allegations of manipulations by the ruling party, cyber expert Dr Nishikant Ojha says that like every technology, even the EVM technology could have its flaws.

“When there is a technology, there is a flaw. When there is coding, there is decoding,” notes Dr Ojha, an advisor to the governments of countries of the Middle-East and Africa on cyber and national security issues.

The observations on the EVMs by Dr Ojha assume significance as a delegation of opposition parties met the Election Commission on Monday to highlight their concerns over the doubts surrounding the functioning of the EVMs. The delegation comprised of leaders from Congress, Communist Party of India (CPI), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Trinamool Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) among others. The opposition parties have demanded that at least 50 per cent of the results be tallied with VVPATs before the declaration of the results for Lok Sabha elections in 2019.

A holder of post-doctorate in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Dr Ojha explains that there are two ways in which the EVM technology could be compromised. “There are chances of EVMs being compromised at the assembly state, if you could programme the microprocessor chips embedded into EVM’s control panel,” he says.

“The EVMs consists of a control panel and the display panel,” he adds.

The microprocessor chips embedded into EVMs are imported from Japan, he notes, adding that “coding the microprocessor chip is rather easy.”

“It can easily be programmed to achieve one’s objective,” Dr Ojha notes.

The cyber expert claims that the second way to break into a machine like the EVM is by connecting it to an external device.

“Our EVMs are like a Blackbox and can’t be compromised unless they come into contact with an external environment, say an internet connection or any sort of a machine,” he explains.

“In the US, the EVMs were connected to the internet, which in turn connected them to the cloud,” he says.

Dr Ojha, however, refuses to pin the blame of uncertaintly surrounding the functioning of the EVMs on the Election Commission of India, the Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) or the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), the latter two companies involved in the assembling of the machines in India. The technical expert committee of the EC is supposed to thoroughly look into the EVMs once the chip has been embedded in the Control Units, he says.

Suggesting ways to allay concerns over Indian EVMs, the cyber scholar says that Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) should be made mandatory. “We must create a system like the VVPAT. The voter must also get a copy of the VVPAT receipt,” he proposes.

“We need to prove the credentials of the machine,” he states.

Dr Ojha believes that the Election Commission’s plan to introduce new EVMs with upgraded technology, as reported in sections of the media, will only complicate matters for the government.

“The more complex we make our technology, the more prone it gets to external influences,” he says, reacting to a media report that the Election Commission has been undertaking a ₹1,000-crore exercise to introduce new EVMs.

“No technology can run in isolation. These new generation of EVMs must get connected to some sort of a cloud. If it comes to that, then that must be studied,” says Dr Ojha.