The Election Commission today said, the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are robust and tamper-proof and even the manufacturers cannot manipulate them at the time of production.
Countering allegations that the machines are unreliable, the Commission has come out with a list of Frequently Asked Questions to put across its views in public domain. The poll panel said, the machine cannot be hacked and it can detect malicious sequenced key presses.
Further, the ECI-EVMs are not computer controlled, are stand alone machines and not connected to the Internet or any other network. The Commission said, hence there is no chance of hacking by remote devices. It said the EVMs have been manufactured in different years since 2006 and sent to different states.
The poll panel said, the manufacturers — ECIL and BEL — would not know several years ahead which candidate will contest from a particular constituency and what will be the sequence of the candidates on the ballot unit. It said, the EVMs are produced indigenously and the software programme code is written in-house and not outsourced.