EC to Hold EVM Demo of Its Own, Decide on Hackathon Tomorrow

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EC to Hold EVM Demo of Its Own, Decide on Hackathon Tomorrow

New Delhi:- The Election Commission will hold a demonstration on Saturday to counter the charge of EVM tampering levelled by a host of opposition parties, chiefly the AAP. The date of the hackathon — the poll panel’s open challenge to technocrats and political parties — is also likely to be decided on Saturday.

The poll panel’s demonstration comes weeks after the Aam Aadmi Party claimed to have successfully hacked into an EVM when its MLA, Saurabh Bhardwaj, gave a point-by-point demonstration on ways to rig the voting machine at a special session of the Delhi Assembly.

The Election Commission had dismissed this assertion outright saying the machine used by Bhardwaj was a prototype of an EC-EVM and therefore could be used to demonstrate "any magic" or tampering.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP and the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had alleged that EVMs were tampered with in the February-March assembly elections in five states and the just concluded Delhi civic polls.

The Election Commission had on May 12 met the representatives of seven national parties and 48 state parties to reassure them that EVMs cannot be tampered with. After the meeting, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had alleged that the poll panel had backtracked the promise to conduct a hackathon. The EC, however, has said that the challenge was on and the date would be announced soon.