Former US Homeland Secretary Questions EVM's Authenticity, Cites US Example

Q. There is an ongoing debate in India about government hacking into the electoral machines. The EVMs as we call them in India. In fact, the Delhi CM showed a dummy EVM being hacked in the Delhi assembly elections. There has been a huge debate on whether the elections can be meddled by the incumbent government using hacking of EVMs. By the way, EVMs are not connected to the internet but the theory is that while they are in confiscation of the EC, they can be meddled with using a chip, or after the elections have happened and once they go again in the confiscation of the Election commission, they can again be tampered with. So how do you solve/avert the problem, if any?

A. We have had a discussion in the US about how do you secure voting machines. Our voting machines are not connected to the internet, with exceptions, and there are different kinds of voting machines. It may be due to this, after the transmission of results, an effort could be made to hack. A similar incident happened in Ukraine, where an effort was made to hack into news media systems, who were reporting on election night and the results reported by the news media were hacked and changed. Consequently, the Russians understood that the results would come out but this would create confusion and suspicion. 

What we are talking in the US and what I have seen in a number of voting places, is having the vote in a paper ballot, you then put the paper under the scanner, and it scans into a machine, so it can be automatically countered, but the paper is kept. So if there is anything that the count has been affected or manipulated, I think that kind of a backup of a hard copy gives you the assurance that if there is a reason to dispute the result you can go back and get the proof.