Indian all-electronic general elections
So the dates have been announced and apparently there will be 1 million Electronic Voting machines(EVM). The only information that they provide is
As many as 200 technicians at BEL, which also manufactures electronic warfare equipment for India’s military, have been working on the project.
…
When the EVMs had an experimental outing in five state elections in November, they drew a fascinated reaction from the electorate in rural areas.
“You won’t believe the kind of response,” said Mr Simha.
…
“Some of them were thrilled to punch the machines. I have seen so many happy villagers.”
BEL says the machines are tamper-proof and save a massive workload. Each EVM can record five votes a minute or an estimated 2,700 in a polling day. “The results are out in a jiffy,” says Mr Simha.
Looks like the the “all-electronic” is the “feel good” factor and nothing else. No techinical info published, no audits, no paper trails. Are we heading for a system that is worse then Diebold in terms of security ?
Does anyone have any additional information about these machines ?
<update> Arun Mehta seems to have done some work on it </update>
they prolly dont give out info, coz its supposd to be top secret & stuff, but heres u might want to see :
http://www.bel-india.com/Website/Asp/ProductDetails.asp?CategoryId=65&ProductId=138
http://www.rediff.com/election/1999/sep/29evm.htm
http://edaindia.tripod.com/cgi-bin/genpage/1069677363.txt [i found this persons cv the most informative :)]
official :
http://www.eci.gov.in/EVM/index.htm
Matter of concern
In not in this election, I think the next one will see some serious crackage of these closed-source desi-designed EVMs.