Election Commission's big turn around

This can happen only in India! Just six days back, I had reported to the readers in my blogpost, “ Google to help in India's general election 2014,” that Election Commission of India has entered into an important partnership with US-based internet giant, Google, to help it manage online voter registration and facilitation services ahead of the 2014 General Election. As part of this partnership, Google was supposed to put its worldwide network and resources at the Commission's disposal until June 2014 to help it manage online registration of new voters and allow the enrolled ones to check the address at which they are registered, and get directions to the polling station.

But, as things turn out, it was a case of counting the chickens before they were hatched. When India's media broke out the news of this deal between Election commission and Google, in which the US corporate giant had agreed to foot the bill of US$ 50000 from its social corporate responsibility fund, there was murmurs of discontent that the deal compromised the security of Voters database as US corporate was under jurisdiction of US laws and recent cases of snooping had brought to light and highlighted the role of NSA in these clandestine activities.

The proposed tie up with Google was discussed at the full commission meeting here on Thursday, 9^th January 2014. An opposition parliamentarian, Mr. Tarun Vijay made a forceful plea before the Commission to abort any such proposal. He wanted the commission to reject the Google’s proposal as it would be against the interests of the nation and its security. He mentioned that “Google’s activities have been violating the Indian laws governing mapping policy.” Also, it so happens that the Indian defence experts and the intelligence agencies are already worried about the growing clout of Google and its explicit American connections in view of the U.S. National Security Agency’s snooping activities in India. There was also criticism as to why the commission did not consider approaching the Union home ministry and technical experts to vet the impending deal before making it public.

Google had explained its stand earlier saying: “No private information changes hands — this is all about making public information that’s already on the Web more useful to the public... Our discussions with EC have been preliminary and ongoing. “ When the matters were discussed by Election Commission with Google, it was questioned as to whether the Indian voter database could be diverted to a third party, particularly so after their six-month contract for voter information look-up ended; who would administer the data; and whether Indian laws would apply in the event of a dispute, as Google often claimed to be governed by US laws alone.

Google was not able to give any satisfactory answers to any of the valid queries raised by commission. Election Commission was not very comfortable with this particularly because this is also the election year and it could not afford any criticism at this point of time. It decided to play safe and has issued a statement: "The EC now agrees that it is too much of a risk to allow a US-based private internet giant full access to the Indian voters' database. Though the National Informatics Centre cannot match Google's capabilities by any measure, the advantages of engaging the latter appear to far outweigh the risks involved. Hence, the commission has decided not to pursue the arrangement with Google any further." The commission has now decided to revert to its old partner, the government-controlled National Informatics Centre, which would provide ways to help voters access their names in electoral lists and polling center information.

Apparently Google has helped governments in the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and Kenya to make public information on the web easily accessible to internet users across the country. However the fact remains that it is a US based corporate controlled by US laws. Ever since disclosures by Edward Snowden have happened and NSA's snooping operations have come to light, all Governments around the world have become weary of opening any databases to US corporates. Scrapping of EC-Google deal at the hatching stage itself should be seen in this light.

The ordinary Indian voter is going to be the real looser as he would have again to look for his voter registration and polling station details from NIC web sites, which may not be considered as very efficient and quick.

11^th january 2013

Google to help in India's general election 2014

I have been a registered voter in India for last 50 years or so. The Governance of Indian people is essentially carried out at three tiers or levels, by representatives, elected by people themselves. At the top is the central or the federal Government, which sits in Delhi and which controls issues like defense, foreign affairs and resource management. The tier below that is the state Government, which controls almost all issues concerning law and order, civil supplies etc. The lowest tier Government is the Local Government or the Municipality, that looks after local issues like roads, water etc.

The structural arrangement is well defined but it also means that a registered voter like me has to vote in three separate elections that take place once in every 5 years. Elections in India are supervised and controlled by an independent constitutional body known as Election commission, which decides and polices everything, the dates, procedures and even moral and ethical code of conduct for the candidates.

In the early days after independence, the elections were like festivals, with candidates taking out processions and people enjoying their right to elect their representatives. The outcome of the elections in those days was however always the same, with GOP or Congress party winning with huge margins. As a voter, one faced many hassles those days. The voters lists used to be inaccessible to the common man and he would not even know the place where he had to go to vote. Political parties helped us by distributing this information to voters. Counting of votes used to be a major exercise that would last for one to several days depending upon remoteness of places. It used to take week or even a fortnight to declare the official results.

Things changed slowly. Voters were issued identity cards. Instead of paper votes, electronic voting machines came into being. Counting became a job of few hours and official results started coming out on the very same day of counting. The festival atmosphere slowly disappeared and people realised that voting was their fundamental right that can change things. However, two problems still persist even today for the voters. Trying to find one's name and the serial number in the voters list and the physical location of the polling centre, where one had to visit to register his/her vote.

It is now reported that Election Commission has finally awakened to this difficulty faced by the voters, as it has entered into an important partnership with US-based internet giant, Google, to help it manage online voter registration and facilitation services ahead of the 2014 General Election. As part of this partnership, Google will put its worldwide network and resources at the Commission's disposal until June 2014 to help it manage online registration of new voters and allow the enrolled ones to check the address at which they are registered, and get directions to the polling station.

As per this new initiative, all that one needs to do now is to type his name/EPIC no and address on the Google Search engine, which will promptly generate results matching the voters' name with his state assembly/Federal parliament constituency, and pinpoint the location of his polling station. Not only that, the voter can use in fact, Google Maps to give exact directions to the voter on how to get to the correct polling station on the polling day.

The initiative will cost Google an estimated cost of US$ 50,000. It however would not charge the Election Commission for these services, but would fund the same from its corporate social responsibility (CSR) budget. In fact, Google is already offering similar services across 100 countries as part of its CSR obligations and had approached the Election Commission some time ago to offer its expertise for better management of online services on the Commission's website, particularly voter enrollment and facilitation. The Election Commission, was aware that the management of its online interface with the voters requires much improvement and gladly welcomed the offer from Google and an agreement was signed recently.

There is another problem area in which Google is likely to help the Election Commission. On the day of counting of votes, the Election Commission is going to get flooded with millions of hits every minute. In 2009, it had used just two servers and had found that its website was badly affected. In the elections recently concluded state elections, it had contracted a US based IT firm Akamai for putting out results on the day of counting. Akamai's 272 servers spread across the world, were used effectively and Election Commission website did not bog down. Election Commission, expecting even more traffic and hits on counting day in the forthcoming general election is exploring the option of using the worldwide network and servers of Google for dissemination of results for the 2014 general election likely to be held in May.

All this is likely to be a good news as Google's services would minimise one major problem faced by the voters and might help in getting the results quickly and accurately.

4^th January 2013

Mischief mongering at its worst

India happens to be one of the few countries ( that can be counted by the fingers on a hand,) that use electronic voting machines (EVM) for elections. According to my knowledge, Brazil, Bhutan and US to some extent, are the only other countries that use such machines. The EVM used by India ever since 2004, is described on the web site of 'Election Commission of India' as :

“An Electronic Voting Machine consists of two Units – a Control Unit and a Balloting Unit – joined by a five-meter cable. The Control Unit is with the Presiding Officer or a Polling Officer and the Balloting Unit is placed inside the voting compartment. Instead of issuing a ballot paper, the Polling Officer in-charge of the Control Unit will press the Ballot Button. This will enable the voter to cast his vote by pressing the blue button on the Balloting Unit against the candidate and symbol of his choice.”

This web site also claims that EVM's are absolutely safe and temper proof and the experience of many elections conducted over last 9 years, at various levels, adequately confirms this claim to be quite true. As expected, elections being a highly sensitive subject, doubts and queries about possible malfunctioning and defects in the EVM's have been raised over last 9 years from all over India. All the concerns and issues have been well addressed by the Election commission of India and today EVM's are very much accepted pieces of electronic equipment.

 However there never has been no dearth of self professed experts in India, who believe that they can cheat any piece of equipment or machinery with their superior expert knowledge. One such expert has surfaced in Surkhi town from Madhya Pradesh state, who claims that he can cheat an EVM. He is a local resident and his name has been reported as C.P.Singh.

Last week elections were held in Madhya Pradesh state for electing the next Government that would rule this state for next 5 years. On November 21^st, this Mr. Singh contacted one of the candidates from Surkhi constituency and asked for an appointment. He told the candidate that he can arrange to manipulate upto 3 AVM's with a single remote control. Subsequently he sent several (at least 10) messages to the candidate's cellphone. These messages read like this: “He can use this device to delete all votes from the EVM." or another one that says: “Manipulation can still be done. The EVM memory can be formatted, but it could have an adverse effect too. I have worked in an EVM manufacturing company.”

Quite sure about the reliability of the AVM's, the candidate paid no heed to the messages and went about with his work.

The voting was carried out in Surkhi constituency on 25^th November 2013. Alarm bells started ringing all over the state, when an electronic device was discovered below an EVM at a remote booth in Sagar town. This device, larger than the size of a standard mobile sim card along with three small batteries, was found wrapped in black cloth and was kept below the EVM by someone.

Immediately, rumours about a conspiracy theory were afloat. While some parties again came back with old accusations that EVMs could be tampered with, Surkhi constituency candidate, who had received call and messages from C.P.Singh immediately tried to contact him but the man was suddenly absconding. He says: "Singh is on the run ever since I sent my driver to his house to inquire about the device.” When he found that this C.P.Singh had disappeared, he reported the matter to the police. District Superintendent of Police says that they have launched a hunt for this C.P.Singh, who has since sneaked into neighbouring state of Gujarat. However the police are trying to hunt him down.

According to some so called electronic experts, this rigging device works in this fashion. This device has a 2 mm X 2 mm electronic chip that can receive signals from a distance of 100 meters. Fair enough! But the next part of how this device is supposed to work does not appear to be believable, yet goes like this. The EVM's incorporate a similar chip. A candidate's 'number' can allegedly be transmitted to the EVM from a distance any time before counting and the machines can change the votes inside. This leaves no traces and ensures that the candidate whose number has been transmitted gets highest votes.

Since I have no idea about the exact system architecture inside an EVM, I find it difficult to predict whether the explanation given by these experts would work in reality or not. Yet from my little and now obsolete knowledge of electronics, I think that this whole idea appears to be just a case of fertile imagination. I agree that theoretically it is possible to destroy data in a digital chip with intense electromagnets radiation, but the level of radiation and way it is to be applied, requires such elaborate equipment that it is impossible to do this in a voting machine. Besides I have my own doubts, whether EVM's can accept data in wireless form, their entire functioning and logic being based on inputs from mechanical push button switches.

This appears to me as a clear case of mischief mongering and trying to create confusion amongst people. I would tend to agree with what Chief electoral officer in charge of Madhya Pradesh elections, who claims that the EVM machines are tamper-proof. And there is no need to worry. In any case the truth would be soon out on 8^th Decemeber 2013, when votes would be counted.

30^th November 2013