Afterword

ThimphuTech was the first technology blog in Bhutan. We started writing it in 2009, just as broadband and mobile internet started to take off. (Although internet in Bhutan was launched in 1999, it was either super-slow or super-expensive, and was only used by a selected few).

In the blog, we wrote about technology and food, but also about plenty of other stuff. The blog became popular and influential in Bhutan. A companion bi-weekly column -- Ask Boaz -- was published for many years in the Kuensel, Bhutan's national newspaper. (The complete Kuensel columns are available as an ebook, Blogging with Dragons).

We stopped updating the blog when we left Bhutan in 2014, but the information within the posts can still prove useful, and thus we decided to keep it online.

We thank all our readers.
Tashi Delek,
Boaz & Galit.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

India to use new EVMs, this time with a voter-verified paper trail

In January 2012, the Delhi High Court ruled that the Indian Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) used in the Indian elections are not tamper-proof. These machines are manufactured by Electronics Corporation of India (Hyderabad) and and Bharat Electronics Limited (Bengaluru). Two days following the ruling, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has ordered the manufacture of new machines: EVMs with Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT). These modified machines will include printer that will issue a human-readable ballot of every vote.

The first Bhutan democratic elections in 2008 employed the Indian EVMs manufactured by the same two Indian manufacturers. In August 2010, after a research group first demonstrated the vulnerabilities of the Indian EVMs, Chief Election Commissioner of Bhutan spoke to Business Bhutan about the EVMs' security. But all that was before the Delhi HC ruling.

Should Bhutan keep using the same EVMs in the 2013 elections?

If you want to learn more about the security of electronic and Internet voting, it's not to late to join the free Securing Digital Democracy course. Details in the video.



2 comments:

  1. Bhutan should not share the Indian fear, at least in 2013. I have been an official at various elections in Bhutan and there is no room for anybody to tamper with the EVM.
    As far as I have understood the machine there is literally no way we could fool with that machine. It will take those highly intelligent Hackers or the magicians to play fool, but they still need to have access to the machines, which is impossible. Therefore I think Bhutan should not waste huge amount of money on new sets yet!

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Passu_Diary, I recommend enrolling to the free course. I am also downloading the videos, in case you are interested.
    https://www.coursera.org/course/digitaldemocracy

    ReplyDelete

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