more on E-Voting Machines

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2003 16:05:43 +0530
From: Udhay Shankar N <udhay () pobox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] E-Voting  Machines
To: dave () farber net



> Ohio Halts E-Voting Machines
>
> Associated Press
>
> Story location: 
> <http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,61467,00.html>http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,61467,00.html

Dave,

Some data from India (via the india-gii list) on this issue:

https://ssl.cpsr.org/pipermail/india-gii/2003-December/005941.html

Udhay
--
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))



[india-gii] electronic voting machines

Arun Mehta 
<mailto:india-gii%40lists.cpsr.org?Subject=%5Bindia-gii%5D%20electronic%20voting%20machines&In-Reply-To=20031205093152.E24386%40lustre.dyn.wiw.org>arunlists 
at softhome.net
Thu Dec 4 11:39:31 PST 2003

   * Previous message: 
<https://ssl.cpsr.org/pipermail/india-gii/2003-December/005936.html>[india-gii] 
electronic voting machines
   * Next message: 
<https://ssl.cpsr.org/pipermail/india-gii/2003-December/005943.html>[india-gii] 
Re: electronic voting machines
   * Messages sorted by: 
<https://ssl.cpsr.org/pipermail/india-gii/2003-December/date.html#5941>[ 
date ] 
<https://ssl.cpsr.org/pipermail/india-gii/2003-December/thread.html#5941>[ 
thread ] 
<https://ssl.cpsr.org/pipermail/india-gii/2003-December/subject.html#5941>[ 
subject ] 
<https://ssl.cpsr.org/pipermail/india-gii/2003-December/author.html#5941>[ 
author ]

----------

At 12/5/2003, Abhijit Menon-Sen wrote:
>Does anyone know how the electronic voting machines work?

There are two units, one inside the enclosure where you vote, the other
with the polling officer outside. There is no paper trail, if that is what
you are asking. As I recall, they couldn't handle more than some 60
candidates -- anyone knows how many candidates, maximum, were there in any
election where EVMs were used?

>Who made them?

BEL and ECIL.

>Who audited them?

Funny that you should ask... (older listmembers who have heard this before
are begged indulgence)

when EVMs were first introduced in 1989, George Fernandes and Jaya Jaitley
(who were then in opposition) called a bunch of local computer people to
give their opinion of whether these could be used for hijacking an
election. We all said, of course -- depends how you program it. But what
about the demo that the companies had offered? We all shook our heads --
easy to write software that behaves one way in a demo, totally different in
an actual situation. Now, that, for a layperson was difficult to follow.

Therefore, one Sunday morning, I sat down and wrote 3 hijacked-EVM
programs. What these needed to do, in order to elect the desired person,
was to determine two things:
1. Was this a demo, or the real thing? Easy: if it lasts more than 2 hours,
it is the real thing.
2. Which person to elect?

For 2, I had several options:
a. Elect whoever "wins" in the first half hour. If you, as a candidate,
know this, you send your few supporters to queue up as soon as voting starts.
b. Type in a secret code when you go in to vote.
There was a c, but I forget how that worked.

Anyway, I showed these programs to George, who was very excited. A press
conference was called, on the dias was VP Singh (then leader of the Janata
Dal, a couple of months later Prime Minister), George, my computer and me.
We didn't ask that EVMs not be used -- merely that there should be
transparency, in light of the obvious pitfalls, and a paper trail. The hall
was full of media people and photographers. The next day, this was front
page headline news (it even got coverage on BBC and New York Times -- but
not on TV, which was a government monopoly then) and made the editorials in
the next few days. VP Singh said that in the aeroplane, people were
actually sending him notes through the stewardess on the subject! In that
campaign he repeatedly asked, how can the source code and circuit diagram
only be accessible to one political party (I wonder how many politicians
would even have recognised them, if someone had mailed these to them!)

I still have yellowed press clippings, will scan them in if people are
interested.

Seshan was then the election commissioner, he ruled that EVMs would not be
used in that election. The new government that came in set up a committee
to look into EVMs, one of the people on it was Professor PV Indiresan. I
had a brief look at their report at the election commission, basically they
checked to see if someone could mess with the connectors and stuff -- it
did not seem to address the questions we asked. I never received a copy of
the report for detailed study.

Gradually, over the next decade, EVMs were introduced into elections, and
AFAIK, there was only one case where their role was questioned, in a
Bangalore election, where it was alleged that the oponent, the local
political heavy, had access to surplus machines at the factory, and had
switched them with the real ones after the election and before counting.

>Where can I get information about their innards for an
>independent verification?

We never managed to get any then.

>I'm writing to the election commission to ask. Anyone else interested?

Sure! I never got closure on this one, you see  ;-)

Should we take this petition up on 
<https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/india-gii>cyberlaw-india at 
yahoogroups.com?
Arun

____
Arun Mehta, moderator india-gii. To join this list which discusses India's
bumpy progress on the global infohighway, go to
<https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/india-gii>https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/india-gii 




-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/