Elections closing in: Campaigns against electronic voting machines getting stronger 

This is the election period. Posting defamatory posts against the Election Commission should be strongly discouraged at this stage. Spreading irresponsible suspicions on social media as facts is a violation of the limits of freedom of expression. The police have registered cases against three people who posted on social media against the electronic voting machine and the Election Commission. The first case was taken against Sharafuddin, a native of Malappuram. The police filed a Suo Moto case against him for spreading a message that a lockdown would be announced for three weeks after the election to sabotage the results. The other two cases are in Thiruvananthapuram and Pathanamthitta. These cases are for spreading messages questioning the reliability of EVMs.

It is indicated that the case has been registered following the instructions of the Election Commission. It cannot be assumed that fake campaigns about election activities are carried out just days before the election unknowingly or by mistake. Social media platforms should also take steps to remove defamatory posts as soon as they appear. Conducting baseless campaigns like votes in the EVM will be recorded in favour of the ruling party at the Centre will only lead to confusion and misunderstanding among the people. Parties doubt the voting machine only when they lose. India is one of the countries in the world where elections are conducted in a free and fair manner.

The machine is also equipped with a VVPAT system to assure the voter that the vote recorded in the voting machine is correct. If a candidate files a complaint, the VVPAT receipts can be tallied and doubts can be cleared. Moreover, the functioning of the voting machine has been confirmed many times by a group of impartial experts and all doubts regarding this have been answered on the Election Commission website. Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has been one of the most vocal critics of voting machines. He, on the other hand, has always been at the forefront of making baseless allegations.

He is the person who has accused the RSS of being behind the terrorist attack in Mumbai. Digvijaya Singh had also released a book based on the same allegation. Later, the author of the book said that he was withdrawing all the allegations in the book as the findings of the investigating agencies were against his conclusion and suspicions, but Digvijaya Singh still stuck to his old stand. It is the way of such leaders to try to mislead the people by telling lies. They even forget the fact that the voting machine was introduced during the Congress rule. In this modern age, even money is transferred through online technology. Those who do not raise doubts in that regard doubting EVM is like claiming it is night by closing their eyes.