The country needs a debate on the vulnerability of the electronic voting machine (EVM) before it is used in any of the forthcoming elections said Telgu Desam Party (TDP) president Chandrababu Naidu in the capital on Monday.

He was speaking at the launch of a website devoted to the EVMs (www.indianevem.com) in the capital Today.  The website hosts all information one requires on the machine.  

“I want to make it clear that I am not against the Election Commission of India. However, I would request the government to call an all party meeting and discuss the issue,” he said, launching the website.

Naidu and his party had earlier opposed the use of EVMs in the municipal polls in Andhra Pradesh after some NGO’s had demonstrated how the machines could be hacked and the results manipulated.

Some 12 lakhs EVMs lie in godowns all over the country, is it not possible to get an access to these and hack the system he questioned.

GVL Narsimha Rao, an electronic analyst and the person behind the website said the launch of the website was part of persistent effort to generate a campaign against the use of the EVMs in elections.

“When one casts a vote through EVMs, he doesn’t know who is he voting for and it is not verifiable as well unlike our good old system of ballot paper voting,” he said.

Rao has written a book on the unreliability of the EVMs titled ‘Democracy at risk’ and has been at the forefront of the campaign against the use of the machine.

He said none of the European countries and US use EVMs in their elections.

Several politicians including Lalu Prasad Yadav, Gulam Nabi Azad, and Prakash Karat have expressed their misgivings on the reliability of the machine.