ECI vehemently opposes DMK’s case against third-generation M3 EVMs in Madras High Court

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday, April, 5, 2024, vehemently opposed a writ petition filed by the DMK questioning the design of third-generation M3 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in which the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) printers are sandwiched between the balloting units and control units without a direction connection between the two units.

Appearing before the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice J. Sathya Narayana Prasad, ECI counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan said, such writ petitions filed by political parties time and again end up creating absolutely unnecessary apprehension in the minds of the voters. “It will send a wrong message. People will start doubting the EVMs,” he told the Bench.

He said EVMs were being used for elections in the country since the early 1980s and no one who had approached the courts so far had been able to prove the possibility of tampering with those machines. “Raising questions over the use of the machines during every other election amounts to flogging a dead horse. It does not serve any better purpose,” the counsel said.

Mr. Rajagopalan said, the third-generation M3 machines against which the present writ petition had been filed were introduced for the first time in 2013 and since then, they had been gradually used, in phases, for different elections. “These M3 machines were used extensively in the 2021 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections in which the petitioner party (DMK) had won,” he told the court.

Generational upgrade of EVMs

The Election Commission of India procures electronic voting machines from two PSU manufacturers - Bharat Electronic Ltd., Bengaluru and Electronics Corporation of India Ltd., Hyderabad. 

M1 - This is the first generation EVM, which was in use till 2014. These were manufactured till 2006 and had an electronic life of 15 years.

M2 - This model was produced between 2006 and 2012. These models incorporated dynamic coding of key codes thereby enabling transfer of the key – press message from Ballot Unit (BUs) to Control Unit (CUs), in an encrypted form as an additional security feature. It also contains Real time setting of each key press so that sequencing of key presses including so called malicious sequenced key presses can be detected and wrapped.

M3 - The third generation EVMs are being produced from 2013. They have additional features like Tamper Detection and Self Diagnostics. The tamper detection feature makes an EVM inoperative the moment anyone tries to open the machine. The Self diagnostic feature checks the EVM fully every time it is switched on. Any change in its hardware or software will be detected.

Source: Election Commission of India

When the Chief Justice wanted to know why the DMK had approached the court at the eleventh hour, senior counsel N.R. Elango said, the issues raised in the writ petition came to the notice of the party only in January this year. Therefore, it had made a representation in this regard to the Chief Election Commissioner during his recent visit to Tamil Nadu and then filed the case due to inaction.

The senior counsel also made it clear the petitioner party does not seek any relief for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and that all issues raised by it in the writ petition were being pressed only for future elections. After recording his submission, the judges adjourned further hearing on the writ petition to June 20 after observing that there was no pressing urgency to hear the matter immediately.

Apart from questioning the design of the M3 EVMs, the party had sought a direction to the ECI to lay down procedures for approval of the EVMs. It also insisted upon issuing a direction to the ECI to formulate the guidelines to be followed by Returning Officers while dealing with applications made by election agents to count the paper slips collected as part of the VVPAT system.