Karnataka offers to host court-monitored ethical hackathon and audit of EVMs

Priyank Kharge, Minister for Electronics, Information Technology and Biotechnology, has written to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on September 6, reminding him of a “constructive solution in the form of a court-monitored ethical hackathon and audit of Electronic Voter Machines (EVMs)”, he had made in an earlier letter to the CEC on December 3, 2024.

This comes amid the campaign on the alleged voter fraud and partisanship by the Election Commission of India (ECI) taken up by the Congress and the Karnataka government. They have recommended that the State Election Commission hold local body polls using ballot papers, which has been intensely opposed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In the 2024 letter, Mr. Kharge, detailing several instances of discrepancies with EVMs and listing out vulnerabilities, had proposed a court-monitored hackathon of EVMs.

“Such an initiative would allow for a thorough assessment of the structural and technical vulnerabilities of EVMs. If the machines are tamper-proof, this would only strengthen public trust. Conversely, resistance to such scrutiny risks eroding confidence in the impartiality of the system,” he had argued.

“While the ECI issued a similar challenge to political parties in 2017, it is important to note that the parties lack the technical expertise to participate effectively. For this exercise to have real value, it must be extended to research institutions like the Indian Institute of Science, IIT, IIIT etc. along with reputed private technology R&D players who possess the necessary technical prowess and resources to meaningfully test the machines,” he said, arguing with strong technology and R&D ecosystem, “Karnataka is well placed to carry out such a transparent exercise under judicial and industry oversight”.

He repeated the proposal on August 21, 2025 on X, after a case where the Supreme Court ordered an EVM recount in Buana Lakhu village, Panipat, which eventually overturned the declared result.

“This only reinforces what was long suspected but never tested, that our electoral system has loopholes and vulnerabilities which cannot be brushed aside,” he had written.

With no response to his earlier letter, Mr. Kharge has written again to the CEC on September 6, 2025. “At a time when serious questions are being raised about the independence of institutions and the integrity of our elections, it becomes even more urgent to adopt proposals that improve transparency. Ignoring them only deepens doubts. I therefore urge the commission to act on this proposal at the earliest, in the interest of preserving public trust in our democracy,” he wrote.