Never promised ‘no-holds barred hackathon’: EC to AAP

New Delhi, May 27

The Election Commission of India on Saturday said it had never “promised no-holds barred hackathon” when it had announced EVM challenge.

Changing the internal circuit of electronic device is like changing the device itself, the EC said on AAP’s insistence to change EVM motherboard.

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The EC said EVM challenge will be conducted within framework of existing administrative safeguards and security protocols.

The Congress and AAP, while refusing to participate in the challenge on June 3, had yesterday written to the Commission flagging certain issues.

The poll panel responded to the two parties separately today.

"The EVMs are not accessible to any unauthorised person at any stage before, during or after the polls and as such, the question of access to all the components, such as the motherboard for tampering the EVM machines does not arise," it told the Congress.

In its response to the AAP, the Commission said it "does not subscribe to the views expressed in the letter (written by the party) that open hackathon is necessary for safeguarding the election process in the country".

It also said it had not promised a no-holds barred hackathon."...no such promise about a no-holds barred hackathon was ever made or announced by the Commission...

During the all Party Meeting on May 12, the Commission had clearly explained that it will offer an EVM challenge and not a hackathon."

It said the claim that it is backing off from a hackathon is "baseless".

“As any person with basic common knowledge will be able to appreciate, a non-ECI EVM or an EVM with a different 'internal circuit' is simply a different machine or at best a look alike of ECI EVM and hence, can never be guaranteed by ECI to give correct results,” the EC said.

It further said the Commission has invited nominees of national and state recognised political parties to participate in an ‘EVM challenge' to prove the allegation of EVM tampering, within the framework of the extant administrative and security protocols prescribed by the Commission, which are strictly followed in the field with active participation of the political parties/candidates/their representatives in an absolutely open and transparent framework.

“Further, in case there is some data or evidence in possession of the party to suggest that EVMs deployed in the recently held General Elections to the State Legislative Assemblies -2017 were already tampered to deliver skewed results, it is requested that the opportunity provided by the ‘EVM Challenge' be availed of by the party and polling stations of the choice be selected to verify the results and demonstrate the tampering during the challenge slot, which will be provided by ECI once it receives the request and as per ECI Challenge framework,” it added.

Political parties -- especially Mayawati led-Bahujan Samaj Party and Arvind Kejriwal's AAP had contested and claimed that the EVMs held under the ownership of Election Commission and used in recent elections in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand in February-March polls were tampered. — Agencies