New Delhi: In 2009, after a spate of claims that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) could be rigged, the Election Commission embarked on an interesting experiment: they invited the skeptics to demonstrate their claims on 100 EVMs procured at random. None of the skeptics could, or they declined to do so.
This release by the ECI gains relevance due to the renewed claims of rigged voting machines by Mayawati and Arvind Kejriwal after the UP election results. 
Arvind Kejriwal of the AAP on Wednesday alleged rigging in Punjab, saying, “20-25% of AAP votes were transferred to the Akali-BJP coalition”.
Interestingly, one of the skeptics of EVMs who laid the charges of ‘riggability’ of EVMs was Dr. Kirit Somaiya, a BJP MP and then vice president of the Maharashtra BJP. The EC invited him to demonstrate his claims and he went to the Election Commission on August 7, 2009. There he told EC officials that, “he was not opposed to the use of EVMs and he had never wanted to do any demonstration about the tamperability of EVMs”.
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