30. How can EVMs be rigged by changing cables

Since 1999, I have maintained that EVMs should be replaced by good old paper ballot, because EVMs can be rigged on a very very large scale with a very small number of persons, if the people at top have sold out. The paper ballots can be rigged, but would need too many criminals in field and so it is physically impossible to on a large scale, perticularly today where "camera in booth" is a cost effective option.

How can EVMs be rigged in a way that no one can later prove?. It is possible with just 100-200 people, provided people at top such CEC have sold out. How?

In this article, I will explain how if CEC has sold out, then using a just 100-200 people, I can rig the over 100,000 EVMs .

The EVM has 3 parts - BU (Ballot Unit), CU (Control Unit) and the cable which connects them. The easiest place to rig EVM is to replace cable by a cable which has an intelligent chip hidden in its connector. The chip will be a low power chip which can work on power coming from signals between BU and CU. IOW, a dumb cable will never cheat. But an "intelligent" cable can do following :

1. The rigged cable has clock in it and knows the polling date and time
2. On polling day, the cable would give more 20% of the votes to candidate number 2 (or X)
3. On other days, the cable will behave honestly.

Now some 15 days before polling, each candidate gets a number. eg my number was 17, that of Congress was 2 and that of BJP was 1. These numbers were given on April-14th and the poll was on April-30th. Now in those 15-16 days, if anyone manages to replace the actual cables with cables that favor candidate number X, then candidate will get 20% or more votes.

Now some 1000s or tens of thousands of EVMs were shipped from CEC warehouse to Districts on the last few days, after candidate number was given. EC is yet to disclose the EVM sending schedule. But even if all 1000-2000 EVMs were in district warehouse, replacing their cables is not a difficult task if the DC and key local officers collude.

And what is worse is : after counting, the rigged cables can be replaced with actual dumb cables. So there is no proof left.

Now how can Party-X such as Congress rig the polls? EC has rule that candidates of all Nationally registered parties will be on top. So almost everywhere, Party-X was in top 5. There are some 700,000 booths in India, and each booth has 1 EVM. The EVM has one CU, 1-3 BU and one cable. One Constituency needs 1000-2000 EVMs. Now candidate numbers were given some 15 days before polling.

So Party-X had
some 40,000 cables which favor candidate-1 (we call them set-A)
some 40,000 cables which favor candidate-2 (we call them set-B)
some 40,000 cables which favor candidate-3 (we call them set-C)
some 40,000 cables which favor candidate-4 (we call them set-D)
some 40,000 cables which favor candidate-5 (we call them set-E)

Now say 200 EVMs are to be dispatched from CEC warehouse to a Constituency where Party-X's candidate is number-3. Then if agent of Pary-X gets keys to warehouse , within 2 hours he can replace the cables of these 200 EVMs with cables in set-C. So now on polling date and time, the cable will favor Candidate No. 3 which is candidate of Party-X. And once polling is over, cables will be replaced with actual cables.

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Did Party-X do it? I dont know. But it is surely do-able for Party-X or worse CIA. For CIA, getting 200,000 intelligent cables manufactured is child's play. And replacing them with real cables ate CEC warehouse is not possible, unless CEC is on CIA payroll. But we know that MMS is the most docile PM US had and US wanted MMS to win at all costs.

We have a system where if PM, CEC sell out, rigging for PM or CIA is trivially easy by replacing cables. SO we must abandon the system and use paper ballots which require too many people to rig even one booth, and makes rigging in even 1% of the 700,000 booth impossible.

Also, EVMs do not save costs. They are more expensive than paper. EVMs cost Rs 10,000 a piece. Paper ballots are less than Re 1 a piece. One EVM serves one booth with 1000 voters and so it would take 10 elections i.e. at least 10 years for 1 EVM to equate corresponding paper costs. Plus, since EVMs are fragile, transporting them is more expensive. And EVMs need to be stored, and so there is storage costs. EVMs need to be checked 2-4 times before election and 2-4 times during two elections. Plus, some maintainence and repairs are occasionally needed. It reduces counting time, but counting time is small cost of election. The real cost is field cost - sending people, cars etc in field. So EVMs cost more than paper, and worse, EVMs are riggable at industrial scale in unprovable ways by cable swapping if the guys at top decide to do so.