{"id":41028,"date":"2024-05-23T07:04:50","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T01:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=41028"},"modified":"2025-04-25T08:56:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T03:26:18","slug":"ecis-voter-turnout-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/ecis-voter-turnout-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Concerns Regarding ECI&#8217;s Voter Turnout Data"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in News?<\/li>\n<li>Petitions Alleging Discrepancies in the Voter Turnout Data<\/li>\n<li>What is Form 17C and its Significance?<\/li>\n<li>What the ADR Petition is Seeking from the SC?<\/li>\n<li>What is the ECI&#8217;s Response to the Claims of Disparities in the Voter Turnout Data?<\/li>\n<li>What do Experts Say on the Claims of Disparities in the Voter Turnout Data?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in News?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Supreme Court of India (SC) is slated to hear a petition filed by the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) questioning the authenticity of the Election Commission of India\u2019s (ECI) voter turnout data.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Petitions Alleging Discrepancies in the Voter Turnout Data:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The ADR has flagged a significant difference<\/strong> (of over 5%) in the initial turnout figures released by the ECI soon after the conclusion of polling and the final voter percentages published subsequently.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Opposition has raised serious concerns<\/strong> over these discrepancies and the possibility of <strong>manipulation <\/strong>at the counting stage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>In another petition before the SC, an independent candidate from the Rampur LS constituency has alleged that the concerned RO <strong>had not furnished copies of the Form 17C record of votes polled in his constituency.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What is Form 17C and its Significance?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>As per the Conduct of Election Rules 1961<\/strong> (1961 Rules), the ECI has to maintain two forms &#8211; <strong>Forms 17A and 17C<\/strong> &#8211; that have data on the number of electors and the votes polled.<\/li>\n<li>While the <strong>Form 17A <\/strong>is used to record the details of every voter who comes into a polling booth and casts his or her vote, the <strong>Form 17C <\/strong>is an account of all the votes recorded.<\/li>\n<li>Under the 1961 Rules, <strong>a presiding officer is mandated to furnish a copy of the entries made in Form 17C<\/strong> to the polling agents of the candidates at the close of polling.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Form 17C has two Parts.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Part I<\/strong> contains crucial information &#8211;\n<ul>\n<li>The identification numbers of the EVMs used in the polling station,<\/li>\n<li>The total number of electors assigned to the polling station,<\/li>\n<li>The total number of voters as entered in the register for voters (Form 17A),<\/li>\n<li>The number of voters who decided not to record their votes after signing the register,<\/li>\n<li>The number of voters who were not allowed to vote,<\/li>\n<li>The total number of test votes and votes recorded per EVM.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Part II contains the results<\/strong> of the counting carried out on the stipulated day.\n<ul>\n<li>The data in Form 17C is<strong> used by candidates to verify the results <\/strong>on counting day by matching it with the EVM count.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>In the event of any anomalies<\/strong>, an election petition may also be filed with the relevant High Court.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What the ADR Petition is Seeking from the SC?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The ADR is seeking a direction to the ECI<\/strong> to upload polling station-wise voter turnout data on its website within 48 hours of the conclusion of polling for each phase of the Lok Sabha elections.<\/li>\n<li>According to the ADR, many times polling agents are not available at polling booths to obtain the Form 17C data.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>This necessitates the publication of such crucial information online <\/strong>after each phase of polling in the General Elections 2024<strong>.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What is the ECI&#8217;s Response to the Claims of Disparities in the Voter Turnout Data?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In the hearing on the issue, the SC had asked why the EC could not upload voter turnout details.<\/li>\n<li>The ECI told the SC that there is <strong>no \u201clegal mandate\u201d<\/strong> to provide the Form 17C to any person other than the candidate or his agent.\n<ul>\n<li>However, it was the ECI\u2019s <strong>voluntary and non-statutory initiative<\/strong> to disclose the voter turnout through voter turnout app, website and various press releases.<\/li>\n<li><strong>This was an initiative for transparency<\/strong> at a national level as prior to the app, information was gathered in a decentralised manner from returning parties, polling agents, sector magistrates, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>The NGO had ignored the disclaimer<\/strong> that figures in the \u201cnon-statutory Voter Turnout App\u201d were<strong> secondary and provisional data<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>According to the ECI, the petitions are <strong>part of a consistent mala fide campaign <\/strong>to raise doubts against the ECI in every possible way by voicing misleading allegations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What do Experts Say on the Claims of Disparities in the Voter Turnout Data?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The ECI always discloses absolute numbers of voter turnouts. <strong>However, this time they are only disclosing percentages.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Unlike this time, the turnouts are generally released within 24 hours of the end of polling.<\/li>\n<li>Also, the <strong>increase in voter turnout in the final figures is unusually high this time<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>To infuse more transparency to the electoral process, <strong>the poll body should upload a scanned copy of Form 17C<\/strong> as soon as it is submitted by the Presiding Officer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is because smaller political parties cannot afford to have polling agents in all booths or constituencies due to financial constraints.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/elections\/no-legal-mandate-to-share-voter-turnout-with-anyone-other-than-candidates-and-their-agents-ec-tells-supreme-court\/article68205044.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">No legal mandate to share voter turnout with anyone other than candidates and their agents, EC tells Supreme Court<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/elections\/lok-sabha\/concerns-over-the-election-commission-voter-turnout-data-lok-sabha-elections\/article68195749.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">THE HINDU<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ADR has flagged a significant difference in the initial turnout figures released by the ECI soon after the conclusion of polling and the final voter percentages published subsequently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":41029,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-41028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}