ISBIS - Statistical Validation of EVM (Electronic Voting Machines) used in India

View the video recording

View the slides

The invited speaker is Prof. Rajeeva Karandikar 

Abstract: In 2018, the Election Commission of India (ECI) had decided to introduce VVPAT - Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail - which would be linked to all EVMs; a paper copy of every vote cast on EVM would be created and stored at VVPAT. The purpose was to be able to recount votes, if ordered by a court. The ECI had asked a few of us to come up with a statistical plan to validate the EVM vote count using physically counting the paper votes on a suitably chosen EVM-VVPAT. I will talk about formulating this problem and the proposed solution. Our report was submitted by ECI to the Supreme Court of India (SCI), and SCI dismissed various petitions against EVMs based on this report.