LAHORE: RAPIDEV is the brand of EVM’s which keeps popping on our TV channels every day for the last six months or so, as it is projected to be the only paneaca for free & fair elections.
Rapidev DMCC was incorporated in Dubai five years ago, in 2016, with its only branch in Islamabad registered as Rapidev Pvt. Limited. They have not bid or closed any transaction on EVMs yet.
One Mr. Wajid Gulistan is reported to be its front man & Managing Director and he is reported to be a Deputy Manager in a Defence Production Firm called National Radio & Telecom Corp (NRTC ), which in turn is led by a retired General and currently being run by two retired brigadiers and three retired colonels of Pakistan Army as part of its top management. NRTC makes everything from Military Drones,
walkie talkies and even need based ventilators.
As per reports, Gulistan completed his engineering from nothing less than Allama Iqbal Open University
thru virtual learning in five years from 2005-2010. Gulistan is also a mentor of the National Science & Technology (NSTC ) Park in Islamabad, which in turn is controlled by NUST, a university established by Armed Forces with NRTC & NLC as prinicipal sponsors
of NSTC Park. That’s the full house.
No wonder then that EVM’s are being touted, besides other such campaigns on social media.
The world over, only 31 countries have tried, tested or employed EVMs in varying degrees till date because
of controversies involving transparency of electoral process.
“As of now, 31 countries used or studied EVMs. Only 4 use it nationwide, 11 use EVMs in some parts. Pilots are on in 5 nations. Three nations have discontinued it while 11, which ran pilots, decided against electronic voting” reported Economic Times in 2018.
UK, Mother of all democracies still use paper ballots to elect its Member of Parliament (MP’s) & in USA 2020 Biden Elections only 25% votes were balloted using EVMs while 75% votes were cast in paper ballots like Pakistan.
India & Brazil are two notable countries which used EVMs in their last National Elections after
experimenting with EVM technology for over 25 years.
Less than 10% of the 176 proclaimed democracies across the world have tested EVM technology to various degrees, so far. Countries like India & Brazil have applied them universally only after necessary trials & errors and the consequent and constant improvements in the EVM technologies applied by them uniquely. Brazil used its 12th Version of improvised
EVM’s for first country wide elections after decades of improvisations. PM Imran Khan,however,intends to apply them directly during next national & provincial elections scheduled for 2023.
No country in the whole world is reported to have applied this EVM technology in one go on a country wide basis except Pakistan, which is trying to reverse the Axe in haste & without any due diligence. That’s clear from the current preparation of Pakistani EVM’s, the speed & rush for applying them is incomprehensible after grasping its limited acceptance by only Four other countries i.e Estonia, India, Brazil & Phillipines,,, Its gonna further challenge the legitimacy of elections when we couldn’t be yet satisfied with our paper Ballot voting in any elections except the one in 1970.
On Election Security, Indian EVM’s have 273 security protocols/tests while Brazil has 93 such security tests before the machines can be applied for balloting. Does anyone know how many
security tests Pakistani EVM’s already have ?
The risk of external hackers is relatively less because of the mammoth electoral exercise after proper pre testing of the EVM units & their necessary randomization before field application in polling booths. The real risk is that of Internal Hackers privy to source code & software in EVM’’s anywhere as per USAID case study of Brazilian EVM’s.
IBM,Unisys and Diebold Procomp—submitted models that passed the 96 tests set by Brazilian
Election Commission TRE. The EVM’s in India, however, were built domestically by the Election Commission of India in collaboration with Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited. The Industrial designers of the EVMs were faculty members at the Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay. Nedap – a dutch manufacturer of EVM machies has provided EVM technology
to many European governments. Has Government of Pakistan contacted any of the above five manufacturers of EVM Machines ?
Finally, has our Federal Ministry of Science & Technology put some Pakistan-Specific security tests
in consultation with Election Commission of Pakistan for approving final EVM Machines for
Pakistan?
Another issue is that of cost of converting to EVM Machines. The Indian EVM machine set costs
around USD 380 per set while the European and American manufacturers offer their EVM sets for around USD 4000 per set.
Today Pakistan Election Commission has requested Government to arrange for 800,000 EVM machines plus a three acre covered area for storing these machines and setting up a data center for them. If Pakistan opts for a European manufacturer then a budget of USD 3.2 billion would be needed to fulfil demand of Election Commission. How a country which has shed 40% of its exchange rate with rampanent inflation besides serious financial challenges for getting USD 1 billion tranche from IMF can afford such an expense.
EVM Machine made by Rapidev or for that matter NRTC will not be credible enough for the satisfaction of mainstream political parties of Pakistan thereby evading the chances of that
happening.
In Retrospect, how can Rapidev, NRTC or other private players design an EVM machine when they couldn’t even develop a credible note counting & fake note checking machine or for that matter an
ATM machine in Pakistan.