A Comparative Analysis of India’s 2004 and 2014 Lok Sabha Elections in Terms of Cybersecurity, Manipulation, and Voter Trust

Author(s): DCDR Pandey, Dr. SP Singh and Dr. Sarojani Singh

Abstract:

This thesis-length manuscript examines the transformation of India’s electoral information-security environment between the 2004 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections. It focuses on three intertwined dimensions: 
a) The cybersecurity of India’s Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) ecosystem and its associated verification layer, the Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT); 
b) The evolving repertoires of manipulation, including paid news, covert influence, and the platform dynamics that enabled amplification; and
c) Longitudinal patterns in voter trust, with particular attention to institutional confidence in the Election Commission of India (ECI), perceptions of EVM integrity, and the media system’s credibility. 
Drawing on a mixed-methods approach-doctrinal legal analysis, hardware-software security modeling, media-system historiography, case vignettes of viral misinformation, secondary re-analysis of national election surveys, and prescriptive policy design-the study offers an integrated framework to compare 2004 and 2014. The core finding is a paradox: while the technical assurance of the core balloting stack increased through modularization and, post-2013, the judicial mandate for VVPAT, the attack surface for cognitive manipulation grew dramatically as mobile-first platforms professionalized political influence and lowered costs of coordinated networks. The manuscript closes with an audit-centric, transparency-by-design blueprint to rebalance integrity, speech, and privacy across elections.

keywords:

Pages: 79-84     |    1 View     |    0 Download