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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 wrong

On 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........

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