An informal group of 124 former civil servants came together to issue an open letter to the citizens of India, defending the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, questioning allegations of vote rigging that they said were being made without credible evidence.In the letter dated October 10, the signatories said repeated use of the word “rigged” to describe elections without evidence risked undermining public confidence in democratic institutions.The former public servants contrasted the present Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) voting system with an earlier period marked by booth capturing, ballot-box theft, electoral violence and voters being prevented from voting.The letter listed safeguards including polling agents monitoring proceedings at booths, signed vote counts, sealing of EVMs, security at strong rooms and matching of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with machine counts. Defending the Election Commission’s institutional structure, the officers highlighted its multi-member composition.On the SIR exercise, the signatories said intensive revision was necessary to remove ineligible entries and improve the accuracy of electoral rolls. Citing Bihar, they said officials had identified around 22 lakh deceased electors and 7 lakh duplicate entries, while approximately 21.5 lakh new voters had been added.The letter maintained that the process included safeguards such as notices, hearings, appeals and participation by political parties’ booth-level agents. According to the signatories, the Supreme Court upheld the Election Commission’s authority to conduct the SIR on May 27, 2026, while prescribing additional safeguards for voters wrongly excluded.Why the civil servants are wrongOn both counts these ex-civil servants are terribly wrong. What they have said about EVM voting and SIR is fathoms away from the truth. Let us first look at the EVM voting and counting. Everything is done inside a machine in a non-transparent manner without examinability, knowledge and satisfaction as to whether sovereignty has been transferred to the candidate of the voter’s choice.All that the voter has is a brief chance to look at a slip for seven seconds. They have no assurance that the slip was counted as such or was not manipulated between the VVPAT and EVM. Under the EVM system, all that a voter does is press a button, see a light and hear a sound.They have no idea whether the vote has been registered, and if so, for which candidate. During counting as well, there is no transparency because EVMs are just plugged in and counted.Also read: Transparency of Election Papers: Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?The present EVM/VVPAT system practiced by the ECI (that is, the fleeting display of paper slips for 7 seconds and verifying them in 5 booths in an Assembly constituency of 250-300 booths after the polling) makes it more of an optics than a mandated audit marker which is indispensable for free and fair elections.In fact, ECI has been totally averse to the basic democracy principle in elections that the voter should have the knowledge that her vote their been cast as intended, recorded as cast and counted as recorded. In fact, in gross violation of Supreme Court judgment ECI has been taking the stand that it is under no obligation to cross-verify EVMs with VVPATs and that the purpose of VVPAT is only to ensure that a voter can see that her vote has been cast as intended that too within seven seconds.According to the ECI, voters have no fundamental right to verify that their votes have been recorded as cast and counted as recorded. This is against the basic principles of the constitution.Despite desperate pleas, ECI never subjected the Electronic Voting System to any rigorous audit or due diligence. It always relied on its in-house, inbred technical experts. who always looked at elections from the ‘technology’ perspective of efficiency and secrecy and not from the democratic principles of voter’s knowledge and transparency.And in the last several years, the stakeholders participatory process with the civil society and political parties has been totally absent.What is the EVS?The EVS has four critical components. EVMs, microchips to record the vote as cast by a voter, VVPATs to audit and verify that the votes are recorded as cast and counted as recorded. Symbols are loaded in Symbol Loading Unit via a Windows Operating System-based Symbol Loading Application that has been developed by the manufacturers (BEL/ECIL which are Central Public Sector Undertakings).The Symbol Loading Application is installed on the personal computer or laptop provided by the District Election Officer or the Returning Officer. On this app, a ‘VVPAT sheet’ or electronic ballot paper is created as graphic image by entering number of candidates (including NOTA), and the name and symbol of the candidates. This graphic image is uploaded into the Symbol Loading Unit from computer or laptop through a USB cable.Although in theory (and as per ECI manuals) these machines are readied and processes carried out in the presence of candidates and/or their representatives it is a totally secretive affair. Because the entire design and source code are top secret and are known to only a select few who are in positions of power in the central government as well as the public sector units.Also read: Facing Criticism Over ‘Vote Theft’ Allegations, EC Shifts Onus onto Political PartiesThis has given rise to serious suspicion in the minds of the public, which have resulted in all kinds of allegations, from ‘hacking’ to ‘vote chori’ to ‘spurious injection of votes’ and ‘stealing’ of people’s mandate.Booth capturing under the paper ballot system used to take place when the supervision, security, transportation and communication systems were primitive. That is no longer the case. Now senior election officials, ECI observers, police and flying squads can observe what is happening in the polling booths through CCTV cameras and can intervene instantly in the event of any mischief.“Sensitive” booths are guarded by armed police with orders to shoot in case of any booth capturing and ballot stuffing. Yet the enigma of voters being prevented from casting their votes persists even today, in addition to the rampant phenomenon of ‘cash-for-votes.’Under the EVM system, there is “constituency capture”, going on unseen and undetected. People’s mandate can be stolen in bulk through large-scale spurious injection of votes and that’s what has been happening in the recent elections.What the SIR has doneNow let us come to the SIR. In introducing this Special Intensive Revision and making several systemic and process changes, the ECI weaponised the lawful constitutional authority vested in itself to introduce unnecessarily complicated processes that enabled large scale manipulations in the Electoral Rolls to take place.The project was ordered without any discussion, deliberation, consultation or framing of appropriate rules or properly training the lakhs of government officials who do the job. The decision on SIR was conveyed on WhatsApp and there is no file on this in the ECI.SIR has led to massive disenfranchisement and deletion of voters, which could be a staggering 15–16% of India’s electorate, mostly the minorities, marginalised and the elderly. This is due to the totally incompetent, arbitrary, autocratic and unprofessional manner in which the whole project was carried out throughout the country.It was purely bureaucratic with untrained and poorly motivated junior part-time government officials called “Booth Level Officers”, working in a hurry and under duress and delivering incomplete and dishonest results due to the frequently conflicting decisions, orders and directions issued by the ECI.SIR has virtually destroyed the constitutional right of universal adult franchise embedded in Article 326. Even the conservative newspaper the Hindu attests to this: “This exercise as is being carried out now is an obstacle not only to universal adult franchise but also to electoral democracy itself.” Could there be any stronger form of indictment?In at least two states (West Bengal and Tamil Nadu) a direct nexus has been established between large-scale deletion of votes and electoral victory of a particular political party.Also read: Ruling Parties Win By-Polls in Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam and PuducherryAs far as Election Commission’s multi-member composition is concerned, it has been seriously compromised as the recent Indian Express expose has revealed. CEC has violated the law on decision-making in the ECI, which states that all business of the commission, including the procedure for transaction and allocation of business shall, as far as possible, be carried out unanimously and if there any difference, the matter “shall be decided according to the opinion of the majority”.Substantive decisions which the law vests in “the Election Commission” but were taken in its name without being placed before the commission are ultra vires.For the first time in history, a serving CEC faced an impeachment motion by 193 members of both houses of parliament. It said that the commission and CEC have indulged in “partisan and discriminatory” conduct, “mass disenfranchisement” through the ongoing SIR of electoral rolls, “proven misbehaviour”, actions that “undermine public confidence”, “partisan exercise” of constitutional functions in favour of one party and “deliberate obstruction” of investigations into complaints of “electoral fraud”.He was rescued in this matter, but the motion signed by 76 Rajya Sabha MPs is still pending. A chargesheet signed by former top bureaucrats has raised similar serious concerns. And this CEC was appointed through a law bulldozed through in parliament in defiance of Supreme Court judgments and given immunity from criminal and civil action.In the event, that these ex-civil servants pandering to the ECI and hailing EVMs and SIR is futile. They are just trying to defend the indefensible.M.G. Devasahayam, formerly of the IAS, is coordinator of Citizens Commission on Elections.For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.