jul 6th, 2009
senthil kumar brought up a very interesting -- and very damaging -- point.
the EC in its FAQ specifically mentions that the EVMs log every vote with a time-stamp. this is also reported in the Indiresan Committee report (page 4).
on the one hand, this is good. let the election committee provide the full logs of all EVMs in one constituency where there is suspected fraud, and if researchers can run detailed data mining algorithms on them, we should be able to see some interesting non-random patterns (eg. every fifth vote goes to a particular party, as demonstrated by mr. sehgal with his trojan horse).
on the other hand, the logs are per se unconstitutional. citizens have a fundamental right to a secret ballot. however, if these logs are maintained untampered (let us assume they are not messed with), then it is possible for an agent in a polling booth to note down the name of the voter and the time they voted, and which EVM they voted from. an analysis of the log will then tell you exactly who voted for whom, thus violating the secrecy of the ballot.
this is an extremely serious matter, and enough to ban the machines as unconstitutional right there with no further cause. and there is no doubt about these logs, as the EC has been trumpeting them as a 'feature' (turns out they are a 'bug').
in fact, senthil provides circumstantial evidence from his home village where the winning politician threatened people (the identity of his party is not a surprise) by saying he knew who voted against him and they could expect him to take revenge on them.
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