Posted on 02/20/2007 4:15:13 AM PST by lifelong_republican
"...the machines' lack of security make them unsuitable for use..."
(Excerpt) Read more at itnews.com.au ...
Are they on Ebay yet?
ping
Good question: I believe that such equipment has, from time to time, been offered on Ebay.
Five machines "off the internet" for $82.00.
"Five machines "off the internet" for $82.00."
That's still more than they're worth, but the public probably paid $4000-$7000 each for the exact same pieces of junk.
I'm glad someone noticed ! These machines are owned-in part-by the ruling circle of the (Chavez) Venezuelan government,and when tested by Venezuelan "dissidents",proved able to pinpoint who voted,how they voted, etc. They could also be "rigged" to deliver votes.
The professor bought five machines off the Internet, took them into a lab, disassembled them at his leisure, studied them, removed the ROM chips and then wrote a one-line conclusion.
The company spokesman was more honest: "This is just an example of something that further adds to the hype against electronic voting systems, but is not based on the reality of the election environment," Michelle Shafer, a company spokeswoman, said. "It does a disservice to voters and election officials, and helps to undermine confidence in our nation's election system."
The article includes: "Appel found that a student could pick the lock protecting a backdoor to the motherboard in seven seconds. Once the door was off, Appel only needed to unscrew 10 screws from a sheet metal panel to get to the computer's circuit boards."
This is no different than saying, "James Bond found that given a week of uninterrupted work, a truck load of tools, an industrial laser, and a nuclear weapon, that Fort Knox is unsafe for the storage of gold.
What the professor didn't say was that in a voting booth or even a voting machine storage room, that he wasn't likely to get uninterrupted access to the machines to pick the locks, etc. before the fuzz arrive.
Are the manufacturers honest? Are the people who work for the election board honest? Are the vote counters honest? Who knows, but the voting machines are no easier to manipulate than voting machines, ballots, punch cards, etc. of the past. This is nothing more than hype to get his name in the paper and to cast doubt on our republican system.
Thanks for mentioning that!
http://www.gizmowatch.com/entry/230-indian-evm-vs-the-3300-american-diebold/
See also:
http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/voting050504.html
There are some issues with the EVM systems in India, though:
http://www.naavi.org/cl_editorial_04/evm_petition.htm
"I'm glad someone noticed ! These machines are owned-in part-by the ruling circle of the (Chavez) Venezuelan government,and when tested by Venezuelan "dissidents",proved able to pinpoint who voted,how they voted, etc. They could also be "rigged" to deliver votes."
Even those systems owned by others we would trust are unreliable and vulnerable, too. They are extremely costly junk.
Actually, the machines are much easier to manipulate than paper ballots, and easier to use to hide manipulation. They're also extremely unreliable and exhorbitantly costly.
When they fail, nobody gets to vote, or those who thought they voted were thwarted undetectably.
The GAO and NIST have reported on the flaws with these systems, and determined that they're unsuitable for use in elections. They did so for valid reasons.
Thanks for the information!
I found this in one of the sublinks you provided:
Tech Chaos: random articles about chaos in the field of technology.
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Indian EVM compared with Diebold
I am writing this while the results are coming out for the Indian Assembly Election of 2004. 8 news channels are showing results updating like stock prices on the screen. Yes a 3 second update. The counting is although very simple and fast because Electronic voting machines were used. But counting from 1.5 Million voting machines is expected to take almost 3 to 4 hours, since, the Electoral Process needs to be followed in all its bureaucratic steps. The numbers tell that the ruling party (BJP) is trailing against its main opposition (INC established by Gandhi). Nobody has doubts about the fairness of the elections. Re-voting is announced in few stations, due to various reasons. But over all the biggest democracy in the world has lived up to its expectations. The ruling party, over-confident of its good economic track record, declared the elections 8 months ahead of schedule, riding on the general “feel-good” factor going on in the country these days. But now it seems, the voters are not that gullible, the opposition INC has got 216 seats out of 539 and will be invited to prove the majority and form a government. Indian democracy is of the Parliamentary type, not the Jeffersonian Model (Presidential type) practiced in America. In the Indian Equation, if a party gets 272 seats out of 539, they can form a government. and guess what, we may see an Italian born woman as Prime minister of India! If this is not democratic then what is?
Last few months have brought very serious discussions on the Net regarding the use of Electronic Voting, and the security of it. In the USA, the saga related to Diebold and its opposition is well known. I do not know the electoral process in the United States, but I attempt here to compare the Technology used by the Indian Election commission and the Diebold AccuVote system. I present here the Information I have about the Indian system, and the information about Diebold got from the web.
Reading this article, some of you might remember that Cold war era joke, about NASA and its multi million dollar experiment with a pen that can write in micro gravity to solve the writing problems of astronauts, and the Russian solution of using a Pencil to solve the same problem. IMHO, the Diebold system is too complex for a simple and straight forward task such as voting. Windows CE, Modems, PCMCIA storage cards, Touch screen GUI, On-screen writing facility, Voice-guidance system, multiple language UI, DES Encryption, centralized voting Server, a step-by-step wizard to cast a vote, Microsoft SQL Server to store votes, Backup servers etc. are all unnecessary. All geeks know that a smaller and simple system is more secure, more code means more cost, more chances for bugs, more threats to security. You cannot make a system that is “guaranteed” as secure. A lot depends on the electoral process and the integrity of election officials.
The Indian Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) are designed and developed by two Government Owned Defense Equipment Manufacturing Units, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL). Both systems are identical, and are developed to the specifications of Election Commission of India.
The System is a set of two devices running on 6V batteries. One device, the Voting Unit is used by the Voter, and another device called the Control Unit is operated by the Electoral Officer. Both units are connected by a 5 meter cable. The Voting unit has a Blue Button for every candidate, the unit can hold 16 candidates, but up to 4 units can be chained, to accommodate 64 candidates. The Control Units has Three buttons on the surface, namely, one button to release a single vote, one button to see the total umber of vote casted till now, and one button to close the election process. The result button is hidden and sealed, It cannot be pressed unless the Close button is already pressed.
The voting unit has a list of candidate's names and their Party Symbols pasted on the surface, and a Blue button to cast a vote faces ever candidate's name. The Party Symbols (like a Lotus, an elephant, a horse etc.) are approved by the election commission to be unique, All political parties use these symbols while campaigning, and illiterate people can identify their candidates by looking at his symbol, and pressing the blue button in front of his symbol.
Here is how the voting process goes,
The Voter is Identified, by his Government Issued Voter Identity Card, or his Public Distribution System's Ration Card, when he enters the polling station.
Voter's finger is marked with a special ink, in such a way that the ink spreads from finger skin to nail in a small dot. One cannot remove this Ink without hurting himself. The Ink washes away in two week's time.
The Electoral Officer then Presses a button on his Control Unit, that releases a single ballot, for the voter to use, this of course is electronic so it just enables the Voting unit to register one Vote.
Now Voter enters the voting Booth, and preses a Button in front of name and Election Symbol of the Candidate. This action blinks an LED in front of the candidate's name and sounds a loud and long Beep, that declares that the vote is casted.
Notes: The System accepts only 5 votes in a minute. The Indian Election process is distributed in such a way that there are never more than 1500 voters for a single polling booth. So, even if armed men capture the polling station, they cannot cast 1500 bogus votes in less than 5 hours, and Indian police is not as slow as the bollywood movies project them to be. No voter has to travel more than 2 Kilometers to cast his vote. Its fairly easy for an election officer or opposition political agents to identify people who attempt to appear twice with different identity. (The Ink on the finger is the main reason).
And here is how the results are obtained from the machines.
After the voting is over, electoral officer presses the Close switch on the Control Unit, after which no votes are registered by the unit. The total number of the Votes registered are noted by all stake holders (political party agents) and then the control units are put into its own special carrying case, and sealed for transport.
Control Units from all Polling stations are transported to the nearest District headquarters.
On the day of counting the seals of the Control Units are opened. The control unit has a Results Button which is physically secured by a protective seal, this button is pressed to obtain the results. The Machine gives the Serial number of the Candidate, and the votes that he has won.
The Election commission takes a decision to ask for a re-election if the machines are found to be tempered with. Or if the count of signatures or thumb impressions (yes, India's illiterate also take part in the democracy) on the voter register do not tally with the number of votes registered by the Voting Machine. In this election, about a 100 polling booths, (I think) were asked to conduct the election again. This number is small, for the size of Indian elections.
In case of disputes, the machines are preserved for the courts to decide upon, other machines are used for next election after reseting the memory.
Diebold system works on Microsoft software, it has no seals on locks and panels to detect a tempering. It has a keyboard interface (!!!) and the server was tested to have “Blaster” virus. One report on Wired says a lady stumbled upon some files from Diebold, and found that the votes were stored in MS Access files. It also has a PCMCIA SanDisk card for local storage. A touchscreen GUI and a network connection to send the results to a server after encrypting it with DES.
The Indian EVM is just plain circuit, with some assembly code. A few LEDs, and two Seven Segment LED displays. One EVM can list 16 candidates, but up to 4 EVMs can be Linked to accommodate 64 candidates. (In a country of a billion people its possible to have 64 candidates for one single constituency.)
Diebold has received its share of criticism from Techies and Paranoids. Techies are Concerned about the vulnerability of the system. Some concerns are right, like having a network to communicate votes to a central server, exposes the system to unimaginable risk. I mean, we all know how safe is a windows box on a network ;-). But, some criticism is just not right, like the keyboard interface, and card reader jamming etc. No, electoral officer in his sane mind would allow a voter to walk into a booth with a keyboard in hand, and would not let him be inside the booth long enough to duplicate a smart card or to open the voting machine to do some EPROM Programming, or to run a forceful algorithm to break DES.
India's leading daily newspaper, carried an article on the eve of the elections, saying that the microchip containing the code of the EVM machines can be copied in minutes. The article was titled, “Winning Elections Made Easy”. The article was written by an Indian Professor living and teaching in America. But I don't think it is possible, as long as the Electoral system and Election officials function to their expectations. Usually Indian elections take place during school Vacations, and Teachers are recruited by the Indian Election Commission to perform duty as election officers.
I guess, The differences in both technologies are as follows.
Device type
EVM: Embedded with Assembly code
Diebold: Embedded with Windows CE, and C++ code
Visual Output
EVM: Single LED against each candidate's name
Diebold: Color Touchscreen, with GUI software
Operating System/ Software
EVM: None, the Assembly code to register number of votes is all it has.
Diebold: Windows CE, and C++ code stored on the Internal Memory and PCMCIA cards.
Records/ Audits
EVM: The Voting unit doesn't store anything, the control unit records the number of votes casted for each candidate against his serial number. No record to link person-to-vote.
Diebold: Internal ribbon printer. And PCMCIA storage for records and audit trials. Additionally the GEMS server also stores the votes and audits.
Accessibility
EVM: Blind people are allowed to bring an escort into the polling booth to help them vote.
Diebold: Optional Audio component to assist the visually impaired. “Magnify” feature to enlarge the text. I guess all Windows CE Accessibility features are available on these systems.
Control
EVM: Control Unit accumulates the votes, it is a device with flash storage and seven segment LED displays. They are connected to voting units with a 5 meter cable, the Unit has a switch to issue a ballot for a voter.
Diebold: Two GEMS servers one primary and a backup, for every polling station, that connects to the voting units to “load the ballots” (!!) and then voting units work independently. They are again connected at the time of results.
Security of Access
EVM: Physical security is ensured by the electoral officers. Unit is sealed during transport.
Diebold: GEMS servers have access through Supervisory Smart cards, and PINs, some users have login and password access.
Ballot Issue
EVM: Ballot is issued by Electoral officer by pressing a button on the Control Unit. It allows the voter to press one button on the voting unit.
Diebold: Voter access smart card is issued in an envelope for a terminal. Voter can put it in the assigned terminal and cast his/her vote.
Storage of Votes
EVM: In Internal Non removable memory of the Control Units. All control units are transported physically to the counting center.
Diebold: In a PCMCIA card hidden in the Voting Unit. Results are “transmitted” using modems to the counting center.
Cost of the System
EVM: About 10500 Rs. (230$) for 1 control Unit + one voting unit.
Diebold: About 3300$.
Power Supply
EVM: 6V alkaline batteries
Diebold: electricity
Capacity
EVM: 3840 Votes (the electoral process distributes one polling station for not more than 1500 voters) so its large enough.
Diebold: Over 35000 votes.
Localization/Languages
EVM: The Voting unit has a Non tear-able printed sticker, which is printed in any of the 18 (yes 18) constitutional languages, spoken in the region. The Election Symbol of the candidate allows people who cannot read that language or cannot read any language at all to vote by pressing the button against the symbol.
Diebold: Supports more than 8 different languages using GEMS software.
Developed by
EVM: State owned Defense Equipment manufacturing units.
Diebold: Private company.
Buyer/ Owner
EVM: Election commission of India buys it and ownes it to conduct elections everywhere in India.
Diebold: Individual states / counties buy the systems, and use it to take part in elections, each state can decide based on its law, which system to adopt.
Thanks for posting that information, as the comparison is quite interesting, to say the least. One good informative reply deserves another, so here's this, too:
"BEFORE THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT NAGPUR Election Petition
Election Petition No. 01 / 2004
Shri Banwarilal B. Purohit
Versus
1)Shri Vilas Muttemwar 2)Returning Officer 3)Election Commission of India
DEPONENT: Shri Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad Son of Shri H.Y. Sharada Prasad Resident of: 19 Maitri Apartments Block A - 3, Paschim Vihar New Delhi 110 063
AFFIDAVIT OF EXAMINATION IN CHIEF
I, Shri Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, Son of Shri H.Y. Sharada Prasad, born on 07 September 1960 at New Delhi, and Resident of 19 Maitri Apartments, Block A - 3, Paschim Vihar, New Delhi 110 063, the deponent named above, do hereby take oath and state on solemn affirmation as under:
(1) I say that my professional and educational qualifications are:
(i) Master of Science degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15213, United States of America, acquired during the years 1982 to 1986.
(ii) Master of Engineering degree in Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15213, United States of America, acquired during the years 1982 to 1985.
(iii) Lead Assessor Diploma (with Honours) in System and Software Quality Assurance of the European Union’s BOOTSTRAP Programme of the European Strategic Programme for Research in Information Technology.
The Honours Diploma was awarded in the year 1993 jointly by the University of Freiburg in Germany and the University of Graz in Austria.
(iv) Master of Science in Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, 208016, acquired during the years 1977 to 1982.
(v) Member of the Research Staff at the Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15213, United States of America, during the years 1985-1986, working on projects sponsored by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence.
(2) I say that I am a technical and engineering consultant in the fields of electronics, microelectronics, circuit design, computer software, hardware, telecommunications, and data communications. I further say that I have nineteen years of international professional experience in providing engineering and technical consultancy and advisory services in these fields to multinational corporations, international organizations, and leading Indian business houses.
(3) I say that I have published several hundred articles on these subjects in leading international and Indian scientific and technical journals, scholarly journals, as well as mass media magazines and newspapers.
(4) I say that I write frequently on technical and management policy issues in leading Indian journals such as Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Times of India, Economic Times, Telegraph, Hindu Business Line, Observer of Business and Politics, etc. I further say that I am frequently interviewed by various television channels in India and abroad regarding technical and management policy issues.
(5) I say that at the invitation of the Hindustan Times newspaper, I wrote the following article on Electronic Voting Machines in April 2004 in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections in April-May 2004, based on my in-depth technical knowledge and experience:
In his article, "Press to Play" (Hindustan Times, Saturday, 17 April 2004), Kanishka Singh described the various ploys used by polling officials to have votes cast in favour of their preferred candidates by an electorate unfamiliar with electronic voting machines. Singh stated: “The problems experienced with EVMs in the December elections were many. None of them, however, are problems that can't be solved.” But, in fact, there are serious problems with EVMs which cannot be easily resolved, more fundamental than the psychological stratagems used by polling officials to influence a technically illiterate electorate.
The reliability of the electronic voting machines manufactured by the public sector Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited is doubtful. The software and circuits embedded in the EVMs could very well contain numerous flaws or deliberate backdoors for tampering.
A maxim of software and microelectronics engineering is that all software and electronic and electromechanical systems are to be regarded as error-prone unless rigorous testing proves them to be reliable. Significantly, neither BEL nor ECIL have disclosed details of the electronic hardware and software used in their EVMs for scrutiny by neutral experts.
After the US election fiasco in 2000, USA passed the “Help America Vote” Act, which encouraged the use of electronic voting machines. Several companies, mainly Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software, Hart InterCivic, Sequoia Voting Systems, Advanced Voting Solutions, and Unilect, manufactured EVMs which were used in local and state elections in USA.
Prominent technologists, mainly Peter Neumann of Stanford Research Institute, David Dill of Stanford University, Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University, Rebecca Mercuri of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and Erik Nilsson of the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, launched public campaigns questioning the reliability of EVMs manufactured by these companies. They proved that all these EVMs had serious flaws and could be used to rig elections without being detected.
In an election in Dallas, EVMs made by Election Systems & Software failed to count 44,000 votes. In a local election in Iowa, EVMs made by Election Systems & Software produced a count of 4 million votes in a polling booth of 300 people. In Indiana, an EVM recorded more than 144,000 votes for an electorate of 19,000.
Diebold's EVMs turned out to be a major scandal with allegations of bribery. Diebold sold its EVMs to state and local governments even though it knew that there was no security on its tabulation software to prevent someone from changing votes and erasing any trace of the activity in the audit log. Anyone with access to the tabulation program during an election -- Diebold's employees, election staff or even hackers -- could change votes and alter the log to erase all evidence.
Requests to the Election Commission, BEL and ECIL to provide details of the reliability of their EVMs brought forth the following bland assertion:
"Tamper proof design
The EVM is designed to be totally tamper proof. Each EVM comes with a sophisticated programme in assembly language : a software fully sealed against outside influence. And the programme is itself fused on to a customised micro processor chip at the manufacturer's end. This ensures that the program is rendered tamper proof and inaccessible.”
The Election Commission, BEL and ECIL did not provide any of the circuit schematics, source code, or test vectors asked for.
The EVMs manufactured by BEL and ECIL could very well contain the following flaws, which would be practically undetectable without extensive testing by experts:
* Faulty logic, incorrect algorithms and data flows
* Errors in circuit design
* Errors in the software code, especially in the embedded software. Programming in Assembly language is notoriously error prone, even by experts.
* Errors, or malicious backdoors, in databases
* Malicious trapdoors in the code to enable rigging
Reliance should not be placed on the demonstrations provided by ECIL and BEL. Even without deliberate tampering, embedded software and real-time control software can behave very weirdly when they encounter situations that their programmers had not envisaged might occur. Any experienced engineer would tell you that electronic equipment containing firmware or embedded software frequently behaves one way during a short trial, and totally differently in actual field conditions.
For instance, I can write a software module which would pass all trials but manipulate the results of actual voting. I could programme the EVM to accurately record votes for three hours. I could instruct it to then assign 70 % of all subsequent votes cast to whichever candidate was leading at the end of the first three hours, irrespective of whichever buttons the later voters actually push. Since trials and demonstrations would reasonably be expected to last less than three hours, my EVM would successfully pass all such tests. I could then have my favoured candidate get all his supporters to cast their votes first thing in the morning, so that he would be the leader after three hours of polling. This was alleged to have been done in a local election in USA but could not be proved since the audit trails had also been erased.
Or I could program the EVM so that at the end of five hours of polling, it would transfer 60% of the votes of the ten lowest candidates to my favoured candidate. Or I could program it so that it would, say, transfer every fourth vote for the Congress to the BJP.
Or I could manipulate the back-end databases during the counting process, as was done in the Diebold cases where it was proved that any election could be rigged, totally without detection, by tampering with the back-end databases after the votes were cast.
Moreover, the EVMs could be broken into remotely after the election but before the counting. All electronic circuits are subject to electromagnetic interference. Even when the EVMs are kept physically sealed in a strong room, an expert who knows the resonant frequencies of the circuits could remotely send signals to the EVMs from several kilometres away. It is highly unlikely that polling officials would continuously transport and store each and every EVM in electromagnetically shielded Faraday cages.
It is also not know what vibrations and physical shocks the EVMs can withstand. After the voting, when the EVMs are being transported over bumpy rural roads, the electromechanical components (especially registers and switches), relays, and physical connectors could be reset due to the jerks.
The Election Commission should pay heed to the warnings issued by the dozens of distinguished technologists who formed the Verified Voting Foundation in USA (http://www.verifiedvoting.org):
“Computerized voting equipment is inherently subject to programming error, equipment malfunction, and malicious tampering. All computer systems are subject to subtle errors. Moreover, computer systems can be deliberately corrupted at any stage of their design, manufacture, and use. The methods used to do this can be extremely difficult to foresee and detect.
.... Unfortunately, there is insufficient awareness that these machines pose an unacceptable risk that errors or deliberate election-rigging will go undetected, since they do not provide a way for the voters to verify independently that the machine correctly records and counts the votes they have cast. Moreover, if problems are detected after an election, there is no way to determine the correct outcome of the election short of a revote.
.... It is therefore crucial that voting equipment provide a voter-verifiable audit trail, by which we mean a permanent record of each vote that can be checked for accuracy by the voter before the vote is submitted, and is difficult or impossible to alter after it has been checked. ....
Without a voter-verifiable audit trail, it is not practical to provide reasonable assurance of the integrity of these voting systems by any combination of design review, inspection, testing, logical analysis, or control of the system development process. For example, a programmer working for the machine vendor could modify the machine software to mis-record a few votes for party A as votes for party B, and this change could be triggered only during the actual election, not during testing. ....
Most importantly, there is no reliable way to detect errors in recording votes or deliberate election rigging with these machines. Hence, the results of any election conducted using these machines are open to question. ....
At this time, the only tried-and-true technology for providing a voter-verified audit trail is a paper ballot, where the votes recorded can be easily read and checked."
(end of quote from VerifiedVoting.org)
Based on the three criteria of:
(a) Lack of a verifiable paper / manual audit trail
(b) BEL and ECIL not having provided the algorithms, source codes, embedded firmware, integrated circuit schematics, board designs and electronic component specifications, to neutral experts for independent assessments
(c) Meagre evidence in actual field conditions, as opposed to short demonstrations in laboratory conditions
it cannot be unequivocally asserted that the EVMs made by BEL and ECIL are accurate and reliable.
Thousands of hours of testing needs to be done, under actual field conditions, before their reliability can be proven beyond reasonable doubt.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is currently formulating standards that EVMs should satisfy. The Open Voting Consortium, an international group of researchers, has spent over four years developing open-source voting systems. They intend to give away their technology for free.
The switch from manual voting to EVMs might turn out to be exchanging the known flaws of booth capturing, ballot stuffing, multiple voting, etc. for as yet unknown vulnerabilities.
by
Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
I further say that, after editing and shortening by the editorial staff of the Hindustan Times newspaper to meet the constraints of space, this article of mine was published under the title “Ghosts in the Machine” by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, on the Edit Page of the Hindustan Times newspaper, issue of Monday, 26 April 2004 (copy enclosed), and also posted on the website of the Hindustan Times.
(6) I say that at the invitation of the Indian Express newspaper, I wrote the following article on Electronic Voting Machines in May 2004 during the Lok Sabha elections in April-May 2004, based on my in-depth technical knowledge and experience:
The first two rounds of polling brought numerous reports of malfunctioning electronic voting machines. In Nunagapaka village of Andhra Pradesh, early voters complained that when they pressed the button of the Congress, the light of the Telegu Desam glowed. The presiding officer, K. Vijayalakshmi, stopped the polling process and replaced the EVMs, but 89 votes had already been cast in the first two hours. The Election Commission is to adjudicate on these 89 votes.
In Sadasivapet in Andhra Pradesh, early voters complained that when they pressed the button of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, the light of the Bharatiya Janata Party glowed. Again the presiding officer replaced the EVM, but by then 138 votes had already been cast.
In Wardhannapet in Andhra Pradesh, polling agents of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi alleged that after 75 votes had been correctly recorded, a long sequence of votes was continuously recorded in favour of the Telegu Desam. Finding this suspicious, the polling officer sealed the EVM.
EVMs were also reported to have malfunctioned in Warangal, Khamma, Sattupalli, Takillapadu, and Karimnagar in Andhra Pradesh, but these instances appear to be more of breakdowns rather than deliberate rigging.
The EVMs manufactured by the public sector Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited could contain the following flaws, which would be practically undetectable without extensive testing by experts:
* Faulty logic, incorrect algorithms, and erroneous data flows.
* Errors in circuit design.
* Mistakes in the software code, especially in the embedded software.
* Mistakes, or malicious backdoors, in databases.
* Malicious trapdoors in the code to enable rigging.
Requests to the Election Commission, BEL and ECIL to provide the entire circuit schematics, source codes, and test vectors for scrutiny by neutral experts merely elicited the following laconic response:
“Tamper proof design The EVM is designed to be totally tamper proof. Each EVM comes with a sophisticated programme in assembly language: a software fully sealed against outside influence. And the programme is itself fused on to a customised micro processor chip at the manufacturer's end. This ensures that the program is rendered tamper proof and inaccessible.”
A subsequent request brought the terse reply that even the Japanese manufacturer of the circuits would not be able to tamper with the voting or find out who voted for whom.
Reliance should not be placed on the demonstrations provided by ECIL and BEL. Electronic equipment containing firmware or embedded software frequently behave totally differently in actual field conditions from the way they behave during short trials. Even without deliberate tampering, embedded software and real-time control software can behave very weirdly when they encounter situations that their programmers had not envisaged might occur.
I can write a software module which would pass all trials but manipulate the results of actual voting. I could programme the EVM to accurately record votes for three hours. I could instruct it to then assign 70 % of all subsequent votes cast to whichever candidate was leading at the end of the first three hours, irrespective of whichever buttons the later voters actually push. Since public demonstrations would usually last less than three hours, my ‘tainted’ EVM would successfully pass all such tests. I could then have my favoured candidate get all his supporters to cast their votes first thing in the morning, so that he would be the leader after three hours of polling. This was alleged to have been done in a local election in USA but could not be proved since the audit trails had also been erased.
Or I could program the EVM so that at the end of five hours of polling, it would transfer 60% of the votes of the five lowest candidates to my favoured candidate. Or I could program it so that it would transfer every third vote for candidate 2 to candidate 10 after a certain sequence of buttons were pushed, say votes for candidates 3, 14, 11, and 9. Candidate 10 could then get four of his supporters to vote in sequence for candidates 3, 14, 11, and 9. Both these were alleged to have been done in local elections in USA. Even in response to lawsuits, the US EVM manufacturers refused to make their proprietary circuits and software codes public, stating that these were trade secrets of great commercial value. This is what might have happened in the Andhra Pradesh instances.
If someone wanted to engineer a repoll, he could bring an electromagnetic pulse generator near an EVM and erase its memories. The EVMs could also be interfered with after the election but before counting. All electronic circuits are susceptible to electromagnetic interference. Even when the EVMs are kept physically sealed inside a strong room, an expert who knows the resonant frequencies of the circuits could remotely send signals from several kilometres away. It is highly unlikely that polling officials would continuously transport and store each and every EVM in electromagnetically shielded Faraday cages.
It is also not know what vibrations and physical shocks the EVMs can withstand. After the voting, when the EVMs are being transported over bumpy rural roads, the electromechanical components, registers, switches, relays, and physical connectors could be reset due to jerks.
An IIT alumnus and professor of electronics in USA, Satinath Choudhary, had filed Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court, pointing out technical flaws in EVMs and requesting that they include provision for an audit trail and a paper backup. Following several scandals, California recently passed legislation requiring all EVMs to have paper backups.
On 30 April 2004, then Chief Justice V.N. Khare, present Chief Justice S. Rajendra Babu, and Justice S.H. Kapadia delivered the following order:
“Heard the petitioner, who is appearing in person.
In case the petitioner files any representation, the Election Commission may consider his suggestions.
With the observations made above, the writ petition stands disposed of.” Several leading technologists, including IIT alumni and professors of engineering in North America, are planning to petition the Election Commission to open the EVMs to expert scrutiny, and to have them modified to include paper backups and audit trails.
India can draw upon the expertise of the Open Voting Consortium, an international group of researchers, which has spent over four years developing open-source voting systems. They intend to give away their technology for free. The international Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is also currently formulating standards that EVMs should satisfy.
Based on the three criteria of:
(a) Lack of a verifiable paper / manual audit trail
(b) BEL and ECIL not having provided the algorithms, source codes, embedded firmware, integrated circuit schematics, board designs and electronic component specifications, to neutral experts for independent assessments
(c) Meagre evidence in actual field conditions, as opposed to short demonstrations in laboratory conditions
the assertions made by BEL and ECIL that their EVMs are accurate cannot be accepted at face value.
Thousands of hours of testing needs to be done, under actual field conditions, before their reliability can be proven beyond reasonable doubt. The easiest method of doing this, while maintaining the anonymity of the voter, is:
(a) Modify the EVMs to include a printer.
(b) After a voter presses the button of his candidate, give him a printed receipt which will verify that the vote is really recorded for the candidate he voted for.
(c) Have the voter deposit this printouts in a ballot box.
(d) Compare the results of the EVMs with the manual counting of the printouts to check whether they are identical.
(e) In the event of any discrepancy, the paper vote should be regarded as the real one.
This should be done for several dozen elections before it can be asserted that the EVMs do not contain any errors or deliberate trapdoors for rigging. Otherwise, the switch from manual voting to EVMs might turn out to be exchanging the known flaws of booth capturing, ballot stuffing, multiple voting, etc. for as yet unknown vulnerabilities.
Meanwhile, during the next two rounds of voting, voters should take the following precautions.
I. Ensure that the “Ready Lamp” is lit before you cast your vote. If the “Ready Lamp” is not lit, then the EVM will not register the button you press, and the next voter or presiding officer can cast ‘your’ vote for a candidate of his choice.
II. Ensure that you, and not the electoral officials, press the button next to the candidate of your choice.
III. Ensure that the light flashes next to the button of your candidate that you have pressed and the long beep is heard, before you exit the booth. This ensures that the EVM has registered your vote.
by
Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
I further say that, after editing and shortening by the editorial staff of the Indian Express newspaper to meet the constraints of space, this article of mine was published under the title “We Need To Know More About EVMs” by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, on the Edit Page of the Indian Express issue of Wednesday 05 May 2004, (copy enclosed), and also posted on the website of the Indian Express.
(7) I say that there were several news reports in the mass media about malfunctioning Electronic Voting Machines during the Lok Sabha polls in April-May 2004.
(8) I say that according to information received by me and believed by me to be true, the Government of India had constituted a committee headed by Professor P.V. Indiresan, former Director of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and former Dean of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, to investigate the reliability of Electronic Voting Machines. I further say that according to information received by me and believed by me to be true, the Government of India and the Election Commission of India have, to date, not made the report of this committee available to the public, in spite of repeated requests by members of the public and technical experts.
(9) I say that according to information received by me and believed by me to be true, the Election Commission of India, and Bharat Electronics Limited, and Electronics Corporation of India Limited, have not allowed their Electronic Voting Machines to be independently examined by neutral experts.
(10) I say that Shri A.N. Jha, Deputy Election Commissioner and Spokesperson to the Election Commission of India, wrote the following letter to the Editor of the Hindustan Times in response to my article which was published under the title “Ghosts in the Machine” by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, on the Edit Page of the Hindustan Times, issue of Monday, 26 April 2004 (copy enclosed):
MOST IMMEDIATE BY FAX / BY SPECIAL MESSENGER
ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA
Nirvachan Sadan, Ashoka Road, New Delhi - 110 001 No. 491/Misc./2004/MCPS Dated: May 14, 2004 The Editor, Hindustan Times, Hindustan Times Building, 18-20, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi-110001.
Sir,
Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad wrote on the EVM in the Hindustan Times issue of 5 May 2004. He had also later written in Indian Express issue of 26 April, 2004. He has raised various doubts about the fidelity and reliability of the EVMs. He referred to two villages of Andhra Pradesh where in the first day of poll on 20 April, 2004 some voters had complained that while they pressed the button for the Congress, the light against the TDP glowed and where, therefore, the polling was stopped and the machines were replaced.
While it is not possible to take out these ‘offending’ machines at this juncture to find out the truth in the allegation because the election process is not complete as yet, it is possible, however to comment on this issue. It is noteworthy that the complaint came only from two polling stations in respect of one machine each. There was no similar complaint from any other place which went to poll on that day either in Andhra Pradesh or anywhere else in the country. There were no such complaints on the second day of polling in Andhra Pradesh. A similar ‘claim’ was half-heartedly spread in Bihar that on pressing the button for RJD, the button against BJP candidate glowed. But in Bihar unlike in Andhra Pradesh, there was no specific complaint concerning any polling station. It is noteworthy that on that day such a complaint did not arise from any other polling station across the country where polling had taken place.
As a technologist Mr. Prasad should know that algorithm and software is not written for 2 machines. And if there had been such a problem of faulty logic or incorrect algorithm etc. the same complaint should have come from all across the country and in any case, at the minimum, from all places where machines manufactured in that batch were employed.
Mr. Prasad says that the machines could contain the following flaws:
* Faulty logic;
* Incorrect algorithms;
* Erroneous data flows;
* Errors in circuit design;
* Mistake in the software code;
* Mistake, malicious trapdoors in the code and so on.
In order to eliminate such possibilities what Mr. Prasad wants are the circuit algorithms, schematics, source code and test vectors etc. As a technologist surely Mr. Prasad would know that for a scrutiny to ensure that the machine functions correctly, instead of seeking all that information the person raising doubt could himself provide the set of test vectors stipulating the input and the expected output for correct functionality and also another set of such test vectors establishing his apprehended incorrect functionality that would vitiate the polling namely vote against wrong candidate, non-registering of votes etc. He would need the circuit schematic, source code etc. only if there was indeed an acknowledged defect and only if he were called upon to debug the system!
Shri Prasad lists out all that he can do with the software of the machines: write software Modules which would pass all trials and still manipulate the result of an actual voting; succeed in assigning 70% of all votes to a select candidate and thus making the chosen candidate win etc. etc. While the software writing capabilities of the Indians have received high praise all over the world, what Mr. Prasad has claimed is still stretching credibility to the breaking point. By implication Mr. Prasad would like us to believe that all that BEL or ECIL who are manufacturers of the machines for the Election Commission of India and all their R & D engineers are interested is to ensure that the same party or some chosen candidates win especially despite the fact that there are 543 constituencies with a different set of candidates contesting in each one of them!
It is necessary to mention here that in the scheme adopted by us the position of the candidate and therefore the location of the button to be pressed to cast a vote in his favour is decided not on the basis of the name of his party but is decided on the basis of where his name figures in the list of contesting candidates arranged in the alphabetical order. The software writer should be so exceptionally brilliant as to be able to define this in the software code he writes and arrange to have all the votes credited to one or the other party he fancies. Further he has to do it long before even the list of contesting candidates is known as the manufacturers send the machines to the States and districts even before the nominations are opened. Even if he is not inclined in favour of any party or parties, then Mr. Prasad would have us believe, that the Software Engineers of the two companies would merely do this to prove a point about their (destructive) capability!
Mr. Prasad lists various methods by which after the poll EVMs could be interfered with like erasing the memory using a electromagnetic pulse generator, sending signals from remote terminals etc. Mr. Prasad would like us to believe that the country is crawling with ‘mad’ engineers and technologists whose only goal in life is to destroy the memory of all the EVMs all over the place after the poll and create a chaos!
The EC had the machines scrutinized and evaluated by an expert panel headed by Prof. P.V. Indiresan. The Committee had examined all relevant issues and ‘noted that the programme embedded in the device is completely fixed and unalterable and therefore, there is no means or access by which the system can be modified from outside’. The Committee further noted ‘the major advantage of the EVM developed in India is the fixed programme nature of the system. The programme is permanently fused and hence cannot be tampered with even if it can be accessed’.
EC is ever willing to open the EVMs for scrutiny again if genuinely concerned persons approach it, but not for people who try to draw a non-existent parallel from the US elections and certainly not to those scaremongers who are interested in writing science-fiction.
Yours sincerely, (A.N. Jha)
Deputy Election Commissioner & Spokesperson to the Election Commission of India
(11) I say that Shri A.N. Jha, Deputy Election Commissioner and Spokesperson to the Election Commission of India, wrote an identical letter to the Editor of the Indian Express in response to my article which was published under the title “We Need To Know More About EVMs” by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, on the Edit Page of the Indian Express issue of Wednesday 05 May 2004, (copy enclosed).
(12) I say that according to several knowledgeable persons, the letter of Shri A.N. Jha does not credibly address or rebut any of the points that I made in my two articles published in the Hindustan Times and the Indian Express.
(13) I say that the editors of both the Hindustan Times and the Indian Express consulted several knowledgeable persons about the letter of Shri A.N. Jha. I further say that the editors of both the Hindustan Times and the Indian Express decided not to publish the letter of Shri A.N. Jha, since it was devoid of substance and did not credibly address or rebut any of the points that I had made in my two articles.
(14) I say that the international Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which is the worldwide governing body of the profession, has formulated IEEE Standard number 1583 which sets performance standards for Electronic Voting Machines worldwide. I further say that the Electronic Voting Machines designed and manufactured for the Election Commission of India by Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited do not conform to the requirements of IEEE Standard number 1583.
(15) I say that it would be easy for a saboteur to open the EVMs from the bottom side, bypassing the sealed and serially numbered top of the EVM, and either replace or reprogramme the circuits inside. This can be done within about fifteen minutes to one hour. I further say that many electronic circuit components, especially EPROMS, EEPROMS, and flash memories, can be reprogrammed even without physically removing them from the board. This could be done by a saboteur after the voting was over but before the counting.
(16) I say that whenever I cast my vote during elections, I noticed that the EVM had a provision for a serial or parallel communications port. I further say that it would be possible for a saboteur to tamper with the contents of the electronic components of the EVM such as microprocessors, shift registers, adders, etc. by connecting a computer or other such device to the serial or parallel communications port of the EVM. This can even be done remotely from several metres away by using a wireless device to connect to the serial or parallel communications port. This could be done by a saboteur after the voting was over but before the counting.
(17) I say that based on all the reasons and possibilities for inadvertent hardware and software errors or deliberate tampering or sabotage mentioned by me above, especially
(a) Lack of a verifiable paper / manual audit trail
(b) BEL and ECIL not having provided the algorithms, source codes, embedded firmware, integrated circuit schematics, board designs and electronic component specifications, to neutral experts for independent assessments
(c) Meagre evidence in actual field conditions, as opposed to short demonstrations in laboratory conditions
the reliability and accuracy of the Electronic Voting Machines used by the Election Commission of India is highly questionable.
(18) I say that thousands of hours of testing needs to be done, under actual field conditions and under the scrutiny of independent experts, before the reliability and accuracy of the Electronic Voting Machines used by the Election Commission of India can be proven beyond reasonable doubt. I further say that the easiest method of doing this, while maintaining the anonymity of the voter, is:
(a) Modify the EVMs to include a printer.
(b) After a voter presses the button of his candidate, give him a printed receipt which will verify that the vote is really recorded for the candidate he voted for.
(c) Have the voter deposit this printouts in a ballot box.
(d) Compare the results of the EVMs with the manual counting of the printouts to check whether they are identical.
(e) In the event of any discrepancy, the paper vote should be regarded as the real one.
I further say that this procedure should be followed for several dozen elections before the assertions of the Election Commission of India, BEL, and ECIL that their EVMs are reliable and accurate can be accepted beyond reasonable doubt.
(19) I say that the Election Commission of India should also publicize the procedures and standards that it follows after the voting but before the counting to ensure the safety and integrity of the Electronic Voting Machines, and to ensure that the EVMs are not tampered with by deliberate sabotage, such as by replacement or reprogramming of the electronic components.
(20) I say that the Election Commission of India should also publicize the procedures and standards that it follows after the voting but before the counting to ensure that the election results are not affected, either accidentally or deliberately, by electromagnetic interference, lightning, high voltages, etc.
(21) I say that the Election Commission of India should also publicize the procedures and standards that it follows after the voting but before the counting to ensure that the election results are not affected, either accidentally or deliberately, by vibrations or jerks or dropping during transportation.
(22) I say that because the reliability and accuracy of the EVMs used by the Election Commission has not yet been established beyond reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of independent experts, the results of all elections conducted by using such EVMs are open to question and challenge.
Hence this affidavit.
Shri Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad Son of Shri H.Y. Sharada Prasad Resident of 19 Maitri Apartments A - 3, Paschim Vihar New Delhi 110 063
DEPONENT New Delhi Dated: Monday, 25 October 2004
VERIFICATION
Verified and signed at New Delhi on this Twenty Fifth day of October 2004, that the contents of the above affidavit from paras 1 to 21 are true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief.
Shri Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad Son of Shri H.Y. Sharada Prasad Resident of 19 Maitri Apartments A - 3, Paschim Vihar New Delhi 110 063
DEPONENT New Delhi Dated: Monday, 25 October 2004
I know and identify the deponent.
Advocate ..."
http://www.naavi.org/cl_editorial_04/evm_petition.htm
I write software for scanner systems. Modifying the software to ignore some votes, or to slip them into another column is trivial, and oh by the way, the software for them is on ROM chips in sockets or even better, on removable memory.
Modern voting machines are no less secure than any system that we've had in the past--it's all HYPE to instill doubt in our electoral system.
If I believed in conspiracies, I'd believe that the hype is to make it easier to install a "benevolent" socialist dictator, or to further the idea that only the "ruling class" were qualified and honest enough to vote. But that's not me. I believe that all the hype is because global warming is allowing more x-rays to penetrate the atmosphere and is frying the brains of Princeton Professors.
Actually, the electronic systems are less reliable and less secure than paper ballots, as determined by computer scientists who were expecting to confirm the converse. This is reported in a "National Geographic" article on the subject:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1101_041101_election_voting.html
Sounds amazingly like "a consensus of environmental experts (including Algore) have determined that the global warming is an undenieable fact, and published their findings in the well-regarded scientific journal Reader's Digest."
I can point you to a web site that insists that the Earth is the center of the universe and that the sun and all the planets rotate around it. They even have a list of "experts" that will confirm it.
This is all about the opportunity for voter faud being diminished by the machines......and the dems are not amused!
"This is nothing more than hype to get his name in the paper and to cast doubt on our republican system."
So what are your thoughts on the trustworthiness of "our republican system"? To me, the continuing drift towards legitimation by direct plebicites in which those who count the votes are far more decisive in determining the outcome than those who cast them, suggests that the system is increasingly dysfunctional and vulnerable to the rise of a tyrant on the order of the regime being imposed by the Venezuelan caudillo who aspires to be the next Fidel Castro.
Tell us why you think that Rome-on-the-Potomac and its tributary provinces, the former free and independent states, now "one nation, indivisible", are free from such a danger.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a very vocal critic of what I've come to think of as a federalized tyranny. I just don't think that the new voting machines are any more susceptable to manipulation than what has been going on for years. Now they hire programmers and technicians to throw the votes rather than thugs handing out money at the polling place.
The only difference between the two ruling regimes is whose campaign contributors will receive the largess. I've said before, "The only difference between the GOP and the D'rats is that the D'rat candidates don't lie about what they're going to do when elected." I don't trust either of them to do what's best for the country or its citizens. The more interesting question is what can the rest of us do to slow the eventual tide of socialism.
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