VVPATs can be hacked, says former IAS officer

New Delhi: Former Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer Kannan Gopinathan is among the latest ones to question the sanctity of electronic voting machines due to use of VVPAT system.

Mr Gopinathan, who resigned recently over “lack of freedom of expression” and flagged curbs in J&K, on Tuesday expressed apprehensions through social media saying, “So, you might remember my spirited defense of EVMs. I still stand by it, except that my first election with VVPAT has taken away my trust. VVPAT has created a hole in the EVM armor & made the process amenable to hacking By introducing VVPATs, we have created so much vulnerability to an otherwise fool-proof process, while not adding adequate checks, either in the process or during the counting. I feel there is an urgent need to address this so that the process become more robust,” the ex-IAS officer said in a series of tweets tagging Election Commission, one of the present commissioner’s Ashok Lavasa and former CEC S.Y. Qureshi.

He wrote these tweets in response to queries from a civil engineer who questioned the integrity of EVMs.

Several hours after his tweets and despite constant requests from the media, the EC did not respond to the issues flagged by Mr Gopinathan.