The decision follows a recommendation made to the SEC by the ruling Congress in September last year, seeking that all future panchayat and urban local body elections be held using paper ballots. The state cited an erosion of confidence and credibility among the electorate as the reason.
Published Jan 22, 2026 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Jan 22, 2026 | 9:00 AM
A sample EVM. (iStock)
Synopsis: Karnataka will return to paper ballots for the upcoming Greater Bengaluru Authority elections, 25 years after the state first began using Electronic Voting Machines. The decision, recently announced by the State Election Commission, follows an earlier recommendation from the state cabinet, which cited discrepancies in voter rolls and an apparent decline in public trust in EVMs. The opposition BJP, meanwhile, has termed the decision to return to what it calls “outdated” paper ballots as “backwards”.
After a gap of 25 years, paper ballots will return to Karnataka’s electoral process during the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) elections scheduled to be held later this year.
The State Election Commission (SEC) on Monday, 21 January, announced that it has decided not to use Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for the polls.
The decision follows a recommendation made to the SEC by the ruling Congress in September last year, seeking that all future panchayat and urban local body elections be held using paper ballots. The state cited an erosion of confidence and credibility among the electorate as the reason.
State Election Commissioner GS Sangreshi defended the move, noting that the use of ballot papers is not barred by law or by any judgments of the Supreme Court.
“There are two best practices to hold elections. Ballot papers were used since the beginning, but since the last 20-30 years EVMs have been used,” he said on Monday.
The opposition BJP, meanwhile, has been critical of the decision, terming paper ballots “outdated” and the move “backwards” for Bengaluru.
The state cabinet first announced the decision in September 2025, more than a month after the Congress launched its ‘vote chori’ campaign.
Minister for Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Legislation HK Patil, speaking after the Cabinet meeting at the time, said the decision was taken in light of “many discrepancies” observed in the preparation of electoral rolls.
“Recently, people in Karnataka have observed many discrepancies in the preparation of the voters’ list, and a large number of complaints have been received. Allegations have been made that many non-existent voters were included, and discussions have been ongoing for months,” he said.
Patil also claimed trust in EVMs had been declining. “Considering the lack of reliability, public sentiment, and opinions, the decision of the Cabinet to conduct elections through ballot papers instead of EVMs has been taken in this context,” he said.
The decision has found support among experts. Retired civil servant EAS Sarma, who was Secretary to the Government of India, told South First that the decision to revert to ballot papers would impart greater transparency to voting than EVMs.
In June 2024, Sarma had written to the then Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, and Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, expressing concerns over the poll body’s effectiveness.
Among the ten questions he posed to the ECI was why the body had “ignored” views expressed by competent technical experts on specific segments of the EVM VVPAT (Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail) system which are amenable to manipulation.
“Despite experts’ pointing out that there are segments in the EVM systems that lend themselves to manipulation, the Commission has chosen to ignore those concerns, perhaps reluctant to go against the political executive’s views,” he had said in the letter.
Sarma also pointed to what he described as a legal infirmity implicit in the “black box” nature of the EVM system, which he said deprives voters of the right to know whether their vote has gone to the intended candidate.
“In an EVM, the voter does not ‘see’ whether his/her vote has gone to the candidate for whom he/she has voted. A paper ballot assures that,” Sarma told South First.
Sarma cautioned that no system is entirely immune to manipulation. “Unethical political parties and candidates can manipulate voting even when paper ballots are used, but it is easier to plug loopholes in that system than in the case of EVMs,” he said.
The Citizens Commission on Elections (CCE), set up in March 2020 to critically analyse India’s electoral processes in line with democratic principles, found that the Election Commission had not considered the possibility of side-channel attacks on EVMs.
In an earlier interview with South First, Madhav Deshpande, who has over four decades of experience in computer science and its applications, said that Indian EVMs cannot be hacked remotely as they are not connected to any network, whether through Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or other communication technologies. But, he said, they can be manipulated.
The CCE study said the ECI’s challenge to demonstrate EVM hacking was not meaningful, not only because sufficient time and access to tools were denied, but also because the claim that a system “has not yet been hacked” offers no guarantee that it cannot be hacked.
“There are numerous examples of EVM hacking all over the world, including an earlier version of the Indian EVM. Besides, the onus should be on the ECI and their experts to convince people—beyond doubt—that their design is secure, rather than claiming it to be secure because the system has not yet been hacked,” the study noted.
Retired Senior IAS Officer and election reform advocate MG Devasahayam shared these concerns, explaining that election results can be altered and mandates stolen using EVMs.
“With paper ballots, stealing mandate is almost impossible. It is happening with EVMs because you don’t know the source code, nobody knows. We have been asking them but they have not informed us,” he told South First.
The source code is the human-readable instructions that control a computer’s functions, in this case those of an EVM. Any alteration to these instructions could alter how the machine functions and, in turn, affect election outcomes.
In September 2023, a three-justice bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud declined to hear a petition seeking an audit of the source code, saying that making it public would make the machines vulnerable to hacking.
“If we start putting out the source code in the public domain, you know who will be able to hack that,” the bench had said.
Devasahayam pointed out that the source code is developed by two public sector undertakings that manufacture EVMs for India, Bengaluru-based Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Hyderabad-based Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL).
Leader of the Opposition in the Karnataka Assembly R Ashoka attacked the Congress government over the decision, alleging that it was a sign of fear and political insecurity within the party.
“EVMs are trusted across the nation, used successfully election after election, and Congress itself has come to power through EVMs in several states, including Karnataka. When even Congress’ own survey endorses EVMs, what explains this sudden panic?” the BJP leader said in a post on X on Tuesday.
The survey he referred to had become a major flashpoint between the ruling party and the opposition earlier this year.
The BJP had seized on the survey’s findings, which showed that a majority of respondents in Karnataka believe elections in India are conducted freely and fairly and that EVMs deliver accurate results, to target the Congress and counter its “vote chori” campaign.
But a closer look showed that the survey was conducted before the party made its allegations of vote theft in the state.
The survey’s credibility was questioned again after it emerged that the founder of the organisation that conducted it, Dr R Balasubramaniam, works at the Prime Minister’s Office.
BJP leaders have also pointed to what they see as the irony of Bengaluru, home to Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), one of the main manufacturers of EVMs, not holding elections using the technology.
But in his letter, Sarma accused the BJP of placing its own nominees in the same public sector undertakings.
“Is not the Commission aware that the BJP-led NDA government has planted its nominees as directors of the BEL and the ECIL, the two Central Public Sector Enterprises entrusted with the manufacture and supply of the EVMs?” Sarma had said.
Another concern raised by opposition leaders backing EVMs was that counting paper ballots would take longer.
Sarma countered this by saying that a reliable method of counting votes, even if time-consuming, is far preferable to a system that could produce an incorrect result.
Officials of the SEC, meanwhile, have maintained that the decision to revert to ballot papers was taken independently, rejecting suggestions of pressure from the Congress government.
They said the move would also allow young voters to experience the change.
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
