People's Democracy

Prakash Karat Writes to EC on EVMs

The following is the text of the letter addressed by CPI(M) general secretary Prakash  Karat to chief election commissioner, Navin Chawla on August 31, 2009 regarding the doubts about the use of Electronic Voting Machines.

I am writing to you regarding the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for recording votes in the elections. In the recent period, there have been a number of questions raised about the reliability of the EVMs in the polling process. Amongst the concerns are the possibility of tampering with the programme chip embedded in the EVMs and further the lack of any verifiable record of the vote cast by a voter. There are some countries with the requisite technological know-how who have stopped the use of EVMs or prescribed conditions for their use. It is important that all doubts about the use of the EVMs for voting are removed, so that people's faith in the democratic system is not affected.

The election commission should take steps to clear all the doubts and allay the apprehensions. We would, therefore, request you to convene an all-parties meeting along with technical experts to discuss in depth the issue of use of EVMs in the electoral process.