VVPATs Can Be Hacked, Says Former IAS Officer in Series of Tweets

'Former Indian Administrative Service officer Kannan Gopinathan, who recently quit the service citing growing disillusionment particularly over the restrictions imposed on Jammu and Kashmir, has now raised serious questions about the electoral process having been compromised with the introduction of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines. VVPATs were inducted into the process to provide an additional buffer against the manipulation of the electoral process by allowing physical tallying of votes. The Election Commission has, in the past, maintained that its system could not be hacked into as it was not connected to the internet and as Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are kept in a secure environment. But through a series of tweets today, Gopinathan gave a detailed account of how the voting process has allegedly become vulnerable and prone to hacking due to the introduction of the VVPATs. This, he said, was the case because the VVPAT, which possesses a “programmable memory”, now connects the ballot unit to the control unit, that earlier formed the EVM...'