EVMs in India

InstaPundit has been keeping track on the debate going on about electronic voting machines and the “possible fraud”:http://www.instapundit.com/archives/010702.php.
bq. “What we know is that the machines can’t be trusted. It’s an unlocked bank vault …, a disaster waiting to happen,” said David Dill, a Stanford University computer science professor who has prompted more than 110 fellow scientists to sign a petition calling for more accountability in voting technology.
In this context it is interesting to note this announcement by the Election Commision of India that the next General Election in 2004 would be completly done using Electronic Voting Machines.
bq. Talking to newspersons after a meeting with the Delimitation Commission, headed by Justice Kuldip Singh, he said the Election Commission (EC) would require nearly one million EVMs to cover the entire country.
This is the largest election in the world in terms of the number of people who vote. And here is what the Election Commision had to say about the last elections
bq. In the 1996 election to Lok Sabha there were 1,269 candidates from 38 officially recognised national and state parties seeking election, 1,048 candidates from registered parties, not recognised and 10,635 independent candidates. A total number of 59,25,72,288 people voted.
[See: “SIFY”:http://sify.com/news/politics/fullstory.php?id=13201701, “Sameer”:http://optimystic.typepad.com/optimystic/2003/07/india_will_vote.html, “Election Commision of India”:http://www.eci.gov.in/infoeci/elec_sys/elecsys_fs.htm, “Denver Post”:http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~1540873,00.html ]