Chennai, Aug 5 - Continuing her tirade against electronic voting machines (EVMs), Leader of Opposition in Tamil Nadu and AIADMK general secretary J. Jayalalithaa said Wednesday that the voting machines can be hacked or manipulated.

Citing media reports about a Hyderabad based software engineer Hari Prasad who on behalf of a non governmental organisation (NGO) demonstrated how EVMs can be tampered with, Jayalalithaa said in a statement: 'This should come as an eye-opener not only to the Election Commission of India and the judiciary but also to the voting public.'

She said the main problem is that in an electoral exercise, if tampering or hacking of EVMs is suspected, there are no means whatsoever to ascertain or prove before the authorities or the court that hacking has been done.

'It is equally impossible to prove that hacking has not been done.