Shibli Faraz, Minister for Science and Technology, on Friday, announced a reward of Rs 1 million for anyone who would hack indigenously made Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) of Pakistan.
“We will challenge hackers to hack the electronic voting machine and if they can hack it, we will give them an award of Rs1 million,” said the minister in a press conference, adding that there was “no easier way to cast a vote” than the EVM and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should not put itself in a “controversial position”.
Faraz told the media that Pakistan has manufactured 400,000 machines and the total expenditure for manufacturing one machine was estimated to be around Rs 70,000 to Rs 75000.
Commenting on yesterday’s events when the Election Commission officials walked out of the Senate Standing Committee’s meeting on Parliamentary affairs after federal minister, Azam Swati accused ECP of bribery, Faraz said: “The election commission does not want to conduct elections through the EVM.”
Shibli Faraz said that people who are opposing the use of EVMS are the ones who had won elections through “rigging”.
Election Commissions Objection on EVM:
Earlier, the election commission rejected using electronic voting machines for general elections, raising 37 objections.
“EVMs cannot be used to conduct free and transparent elections in line with the Constitution” the ECP said in its objections.
Some of the objections raised by the ECP included:
- There is no secrecy of the voter in the electronic voting machine
- There is a lack of transparency
- Testing time before the next general election is less
- Stakeholders are not on board
- People have not been taken into confidence
The federal minister also mentioned that out of the total 37 points present in the objection letter issued by Election Commission of Pakistan, only 10 points were in direct objection to the electronic voting machines, rest of the 27 points were about the ECP’s capability to use them.
ECP also mentioned in a document submitted to the Senate Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs that it did not have enough financial support to organize the machines throughout Pakistan and it also questioned the government on how it can be so sure about the machine’s transparency.
The PTI government believes use of electronic voting machine is the only way to ensure free and fair elections in Pakistan.