Chai and Why? The Indian Electronic Voting Machine - Dinesh Sharma 21/4/2019

An election season special Chai and Why? session!
Sunday April 21, 2019, 11 am
D.G. Ruparel College, Matunga (W), Mumbai
The Indian Electronic Voting Machine
Dinesh Sharma
IIT Bombay
Electronic voting machines face unique technical challenges. An election requires both privacy and transparency. The EVM should provide advanced features for security, but have a user interface simple enough to be used intuitively by any citizen, whatever their background. The machine has to be easily operatable by non-technical staff at remote polling booths. However, since the accounting of votes is done electronically, serious doubts have been raised about the possibility of `hacking' and manipulating these machines.In this session Prof. Sharma discussed the technical and non-technical challenges faced by the all-important EVM!
About the speaker: Dinesh Sharma is an Emeritus Fellow at the Dept. of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay, and a member of the Technical Experts Committee appointed by the Election Commission as an independent body to help in development and monitoring of electronic voting equipment and to advise it on technical matters. Among several other honours, he received a special felicitation by the president of India for his contributions as a member of the Technical Experts Committee of Election Commission in 2017.

[@sjexploresindia]

Thanks Prof DK for this clinical rebuttal of all canards against the Indian EVMs. You still are as amazing a teacher as you were when you taught us nearly 30 years ago!

[@DineshSharma-ic3vn]

Just an update: In the recently concluded General Election, voter slips from 20625 VVPAT machines (randomly chosen 5 machines from each assembly contrituency) were counted. These were from >4000 assembly constituencies constituting 542 Lok Sabha seats. This represents about 20 Lakh votes counted by hand. Not a single case of mismatch -- even by one vote -- between the electronic count and the manual count was reported from anywhere.

[@Gj01_Ah_Rahul_Chimanbhai_Mehta]

So that proves that either there was no rigging. Or BOTH got rigged.. Tallying doesnt prove NO rigging

[@MrMaverickanand]

@@Gj01_Ah_Rahul_Chimanbhai_Mehta No system can provide absolutely security, you have to rely on the control procedures, one of which is VVPAT. So tallying provides evidence that one of the controls in the framework is working. For more security, you will need additional controls, such as polling agents, non local security personnel and things of that sort

[@Gj01_Ah_Rahul_Chimanbhai_Mehta]

​@@MrMaverickanand . The glass color was plain ordinary transparent till jun-2017 . It was changed to dark black front side mirror only back side mirror jun-2017 onwars . with this glass, program inside VVPAT can fool voters and manipulate paper votes !! . Pls see 3 minutes of this 6 min vdo --- kzbin.info/www/bejne/gqCcnIiXgpJ4rqM .

[@shivammaharaj7828]

great sir....pround to be your student....one of the most influential prof. that i have met throuhgh out my academic carrier...Simple man ..with smiling face and always ready to interact with students....May God blees you with good health so u can train few more generations of students...

[@ansudasa]

Eye opener for parties who blame EVM ✌️👍

[@JeegarPandya]

Why does this video have only so few views? Amazing technology and detailed explanation which clears all doubt on EVM security.

[@tester129]

This is indeed the kind of lecture and material that should be, officially, put in the open domain by the election commission. The attitude "believe us, because we are learned and doing the right thing", that is troubling. The prof, needlessly, gets angry. The concerns are valid, given the implications. be respectful to them. That they are unfounded needs to be politely communicated. | They have put in significant measures. But they cannot decide if those measures are adequate. That is for others to judge. They should publish the documentation, have open house sessions on EVMs, allow selected-people to use and try out. Hope, EC has a FAQ on the kind of questions posed. Am sure people and experts will have many.. Educating the citizens is a part of the Charted of the designers and architects.

[@vineeshvs]

Best video on EVMs clarifying many doubts.

[@jayjadhav5249]

Thank you Prof.DK

[@kartikvenkatraman95]

Thank you sir for your wonderful explanation

[@akhilkapoor1987]

It is possible to intercept and tamper with data transmitted on RS422 network, one which is used to coonect between BU, VVPAT, and CU. How is this tampering prevented? Was it considered while appeoving use of RS422?

[@stanlyjohnson5999]

Great video.

[@gsk1986]

""In the PRESENCE of all parties""" cool

[@enstoic]

Thank you for awesome video. However, following minor doubts 1. When we could insert VVPAT machine in between acting as CU for BU and BU for CU, it could also means man in middle attacks are possible. 2. Modern browsers use certificate authorities to verify genuineness of certificate, but how does the components verify same without internet connectivity? 3. Professor told that we don't know which EVM will go to which district or booth but also told that some IAS plugged EVM meant for other constituency connected VVPAT of other constituency. How the two statements are consistent? (In this point I might be missing some minor point) 4. If for 1% error detection 796 evm has to be checked, what is the error rate required to make some candidates win randomly? If it is less than 1% how many EVMs have to be checked for that to be checked?

[@akhilkapoor1987]

Can EC not share this video publicly shared to address any doubts people have. The Indian EVM and the whole election process is one of the best in the world... they just don't know the details and it would benefit to just share this video regarding EVM with public.

[@chaiandwhy]

Thank you for your suggestion. You may contribute by sharing the link to the video in your circle:)

[@akhilkapoor1987]

Already shared on Twitter.. if it comes from the horses mouth, it will definitely have more impact sir :)

[@gsk1986]

YOu are magician man

[@RatnadeepRaxsithIsGreat]

At 29:50, Prof DK said..that an IAS officer connected the VVPAT of one district with another districts BU. So there was a mismatch of number pressed and symbol printed. So could the govt not very easily switch the VVPAT/BU to suit their needs if they have the inside knowledge of which number prints which symbol of specific districts. Because when counting happens, will they look at the name or just the symbol? This is just a query and it will be great if someone knowledgeable could answer this question.

[@shashank318akg]

Name and symbol both

[@abhilashpatel1809]

very informative presentation !!

[@chaiandwhy]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Hitu_Khaira]

So with every country in the race for quantum computing , some even claiming already in use . Will the encryption be rendered useless even if it is how many ever gbs

[@chaiandwhy]

Unlikely in near future

[@mojoomla]

We are not at all impressed with all the technical jargon of the professor. We just want a simple paper ballot, period. We do not want all these elite technocrats to be in control of our democracy. We want simplicity in the process . No need for all this technological mumbo-jumbo. Dear Prof. Dinesh Sharma, please use all your brilliance and intelligence to build missiles and rockets for the country or something of that kind. Leave election process to simple people using simple techniques and processes. THANKS.

[@jayjadhav5249]

We should be happy that there are such wonderful personalities working very hard to develop such an excellent machine which is better in comparison to other countries. I am very proud to be an Indian.

[@MrMaverickanand]

I think this provides a better transparency/control in the voting process better than a paper ballot and is simple enough to be used and I think voting is as important if not more for a nation as missiles/weapons

[@Gj01_Ah_Rahul_Chimanbhai_Mehta]

. The glass color was plain ordinary transparent till jun-2017 . It was changed to dark black front side mirror only back side mirror jun-2017 onwars . with this glass, program inside VVPAT can fool voters and manipulate paper votes !! . Pls see 3 minutes of this 6 min vdo --- kzbin.info/www/bejne/gqCcnIiXgpJ4rqM .

[@mojoomla]

@@MrMaverickanand We are getting to see how transparent it is in Bihar . As regards control, yes, BJP has it completely in its control. And SC does not think it is necessary to count more than 5% of VVPAT slips !

[@prakashd661]

Prof. Dinesh Sharma has used all of his brilliance and intelligence to do incredible things in his domain of research (which perhaps you would not be able to appreciate due to your clear lack of technical knowledge which can be inferred from your comment) apart from being a brilliant teacher. I don't think he needs advice about building missiles and rockets from you. Better do some background research and get your facts right about people before trying to downplay them. You have all rights to express your political views (which I do not have any problem with), but learn to be respectful to a person of his stature. Also I am pretty sure the professor does not give a crap about your political mumbo-jumbo. So kindly refrain from commenting and trying to give tech-related "advice" to researchers from next time if technology clearly is clearly not your cup of tea. Stick to politics and leave technology to the experts. THANKS.