EC expert team rejects 'motivated' hacking claim, says EVM 'non-tamperable'

The Election Commission dismissed the remarks of self-proclaimed cyber expert Syed Shuja that EVMs can be hacked as an attempt to create a "motivated controversy" and said its expert panel which designed the machines reaffirmed on Tuesday that these cannot be tampered with.

It said the reconfirmation by the Technical Experts Committee was made in the wake of the "motivated controversy" about electronic voting machines "attempted to be created" by Shuja.

The committee has Prof Emeritus IIT Delhi D T Shahani, IIT Bhilai director Rajat Moona and Prof Emeritus IIT Bombay D K Sharma as its members.

Quoting the TEC members, the EC said in a statement that the 'ECI-EVMs' are stand-alone machines designed to connect only amongst ballot unit, control unit and VVPAT through cables that remain in full public view.

"There is no mechanism in ECI-EVMs to communicate with any device through wireless communication on any radio frequency.All versions of ECI-EVMs are regularly and rigorously tested against low to high wireless frequencies.These tests include, and go beyond the standard tests specified for electronic equipment," the statement said.

It said the ECI-EVMs are regularly tested for proper functioning under all kind of operating conditions and for code authentication and verification.