The Election Commission of India (ECI) has thrown an open challenge to all national and state political parties from 3 June onward to hack Electronic Voting Machines.
This was announced by Nasim Zaidi, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) while addressing a press conference on Saturday. The ECI also demonstrated the working of EVMs and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail System (VVPATs) while briefing the media on the functionality of EVMs and how they have proved to be infallible.
In the “hackathon”, as per Zaidi, each national and state recognised party can nominate three authorised persons and political parties will have to confirm their interest by 5 pm on 26 May through an online application. “Only these persons will be allowed to participate in the challenge. If the challenger violates our guidelines or withdraws, the challenger would fail,” said the CEC, adding that EVMs can be opened for visual inspection during Challenge 2, as this is allowed during the first level check. Machines can’t be opened during Challenge 1 as they are kept in a sealed state after polls.