no additional security issues as compared to the ballot-box-ink-paper technique
This is incorrect. Having electronic voting machines eliminates certain avenues for fraud, but introduces a huge number of others... In fact, ensuring security is not possible unless the voting machines are used purely as user interfaces.
If these EVM's model the voting machines used in the United States, this is clearly a bad idea. Anyone who read the report released earlier by researchers at Rice and Johns Hopkins
about fraud concerning electronic voting machines has,at least, serious reservations about not using them.
If we throw into the mix India's huge populace, then it is safe to say that vote rigging and election stealing is far from over.
What is the solution to India's voting problems? I am far from qualified to present a solution. But, electronic voting systems is certainly not a solution.The reason for this is that it is very, very difficult to ensure that the software that is used for such systems is extremely secure. In other words, it is nearly impossible to ensure that no cheating will be carried out by the voters, the poll workers, the election officials, the software developers, etc.
The only known solution to this problem is to use a voter verifiable audit trail, that is a paper account of the voting. By doing this, we no longer care about the accuracy of the software. The software is simply a blackbox that accepts the input of the user and prints it out to paper, which the voter can verify.
The point is that the only possible proper use for an EVM is as a user-interface.The machine can help people who are visually or hearing impaired or it may display voting options in different languages, etc. There are innumerable user interface hacks that can help the population. But no matter what, it is nearly impossible to verify security if the EVM's are used as anything other than exclusive user interfaces.
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no additional security issues as compared to the ballot-box-ink-paper technique
This is incorrect. Having electronic voting machines eliminates certain avenues for fraud, but introduces a huge number of others... In fact, ensuring security is not possible unless the voting machines are used purely as user interfaces.
If these EVM's model the voting machines used in the United States, this is clearly a bad idea. Anyone who read the report released earlier by researchers at Rice and Johns Hopkins about fraud concerning electronic voting machines has
What is the solution to India's voting problems? I am far from qualified to present a solution. But, electronic voting systems is certainly not a solution.The reason for this is that it is very, very difficult to ensure that the software that is used for such systems is extremely secure. In other words, it is nearly impossible to ensure that no cheating will be carried out by the voters, the poll workers, the election officials, the software developers, etc.
The only known solution to this problem is to use a voter verifiable audit trail, that is a paper account of the voting. By doing this, we no longer care about the accuracy of the software. The software is simply a blackbox that accepts the input of the user and prints it out to paper, which the voter can verify. The point is that the only possible proper use for an EVM is as a user-interface.The machine can help people who are visually or hearing impaired or it may display voting options in different languages, etc. There are innumerable user interface hacks that can help the population. But no matter what, it is nearly impossible to verify security if the EVM's are used as anything other than exclusive user interfaces.