What the EC Is Hesitant to Tell the Public About EVMs and VVPATs

'RTI queries have revealed, among other things, that the micro-controller used in the current elections is not one-time programmable, as consistently claimed by the Election Commission... Free and fair elections form the bedrock of our constitutionally guaranteed democracy. As vigilant citizens, it is desirable to adopt the stance – “In God we trust, everything else requires evidence”. Given the heightened anxieties over EVMs and VVPATs, it is time to publicise some information I obtained from the ECI and the EVM+VVPAT manufacturers – Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL) and Electronics Corporation of India Ltd. (ECIL), recently under The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act)... While the ECI continues to claim that the micro-controller used in the EVMs is one-time programmable (OTP), the description of the micro-controller’s features on NXP’s website indicates that it has three kinds of memory – SRAM, FLASH and EEPROM (or E2PROM). Experts who know enough and more about micro-controllers confirm that a computer chip which includes FLASH memory cannot be called OTP...'