Representative image (Image: Getty Images)
New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Saturday concluded the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) hackathon on Saturday in which only two political parties, NCP and CPI (M), participated.
The Chief Election Commissioner of India, Naseem Zaidi, however, said that both the parties didn’t try to hack into the machine and just took a demonstration. “The parties are satisfied with the functioning of the electronic voting machines.”
Zaidi, however, refused to categorise the hackathon into a “success” or “failure”, saying that it was an ongoing exercise to improve the conduct of elections.
EC informed the media that even the NCP team expressed the willingness to opt out of the challenge, requesting the EC to evolve its system that distinguishes ECI EVMs from State EC EVMs.
“EVMs used by state election commission, Maharashtra for urban local body elections do not belong to ECI,” Zaid explained to NCP.
The CPI (M), on the other hand, didn’t wish to participate in any challenge but was interested in understanding the EVM process only, Zaidi told media.
Election Commission had thrown open a challenge to all the political parties, technocrats to hack into the EVMs used in the electoral process. The Aam Aadmi Party, one of the most vocal critics of the EVMs, reinvigorated the debate after its MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj claimed to have proved that EVMs weren’t infallible.