Technical experts from Bharat
Electronics Limited, the manufacturer of the controversial electronic voting
machines used in Namibia's most recent election, have defended their product,
saying it is tamper-proof.
The two Indian experts, who
were in the country from Bangalore, Krishna Kumar and Sreenivasa Rao, said any
delay in election results, was not because of the machines.
“Any election is a long
process.Whatever delay there is, has nothing to do with the EVMs,” Kumar said,
during an interview with The Namibian at the ECN headquarters on Monday.
Opposition parties, including
the Workers Revolutionary Party, the Namibian Economic Freedom Fighters and
Nudo, blamed the election mishaps on the EVMs, including the
delay in the announcement of
the Presidential and National Assembly results, which they claimed were being
“cooked and manipulated behind closed doors” using the machines.
“They are cooking and
stirring a pot inside there. EVMs were pre-programmed to give a pre-determined
election result in favour of the ruling party (Swapo),” human-rights activist
and labour consultant August Maletzky said as he commented on the delay in
announcing the results on Monday.
But the Indians insist the
machines cannot be pre-programmed.
“The electronic voting
machine is a stand-alone equipment which cannot be connected to an electronic
device such as Bluetooth and cannot be manipulated. Once programmed, it cannot
be altered,” explains Rao, who is the senior assistant engineer at Bharat.
He says the device has been
programmed only once during its manufacturing and therefore cannot be
re-programmed as some people allege. The experts say back in India, the EVMs
have also stirred up debate and received a lot of criticism from opposition
parties since they were introduced in the country's elections in 2000, but said
all those disputes have come to naught.
“Opposition parties, even in
India critisised the EVMs because they do not want to accept defeat. Whenever
there is a delay in announcing the results of the elections, people blame it on
the EVMs,” said Kumar, who is Bharat's additional general manager. He said even
court challenges over EVMs in India have failed.
“There were a number of court
challenges over the credibility of the EVMs, both in the Indian High Court and
the Indian Supreme Court. All those cases were thrown out because no evidence
of manipulation of the EVMs could be found; there have been no new cases
reported in the past few years,” said Kumar.
Both Kumar and Rao said
Namibian opposition parties' negative attitude towards the EVMs was not a new
phenomenon for them. They have survived resistance from opposition parties in
India over the same issue. Kumar said the Elections Commission of India has a
technical experts committee that has looked into its operations and said India
has been using the devices for years without any reported rigging or
manipulation incidences.
Kumar also said when the company
signed a contract with the Electoral Commission of Namibia in 2008, the
much-debated verification paper trail that has stirred heated debate over the
past months was not part of the agreement. “They had not requested the EVMs
with a paper trail because by then, we did not have the paper trails even in
India,” he said.
Kumar said the ECN only
requested for the paper trail last year and asked if they could have it
installed within six months. “We informed them that it was not possible because
we are still in the process of manufacturing machines with a paper trail,” he
said.
Kumar said the company has
been in the process of manufacturing devices with paper trails from 2011, but
says this was still ongoing since it was a chain of verification and evaluation
process.
“Until the Election
Commission of India approves the new model of EVMs with a paper trail, we
cannot manufacture them on a large scale or distribute them to customers
outside of India,” he explained. Kumar also denied that the long wait voters
had to endure at the polls last Friday was due to the fact that the machines
were not as fast as expected.
“The normal voting time using
the EVMs should be between twelve seconds to a minute. EVMs cannot delay the
voting process,” he said. Kumar, however, pointed out that the EVMs will not
operate to their full capacity if they are not set up properly or if those
operating them are not properly trained on their use.
“The use of EVMs in Namibia
has been a success. The only problems reported was with the voter verification
devices, which have nothing to do with us,” he said.
He says the models of the
EVMs are specially tailor-made for each country, depending on the request. “The
EVMs in India differ from the ones used in Namibia, which have been designed as
requested by ECN,” he said.
Asked if there were any other
countries using the EVMs, Kumar said they are currently having talks with
countries such as Kenya and Ghana on possible contracts to use the technology
in their elections. “Acceptance of the EVMs is a process. Right now Kenya is
observing how Namibia's election with the EVMs will turn out before they can
make a decision,” said Kumar.
The Namibian
No comments:
Post a Comment