SC seeks Centre’s response on use of ‘totalisers’ in EVM vote counting, Pg12

Key Highlights:

• The Supreme Court has sought the Centre’s response regarding the use of "totalisers" in EVM vote counting.
• Totalisers are machines designed to consolidate votes from multiple EVM control units simultaneously, without revealing booth-wise voting trends.
• The Election Commission (EC) cautioned against introducing totalisers, citing potential for fresh controversy and lack of a legal framework.
• Most political parties, including three out of six national parties, have opposed the idea of totalisers.

Detailed Insights:

• The Supreme Court order came in response to a petition filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay.
• The petitioner argued that totalisers would safeguard the privacy of individual voters and protect them from political reprisals based on booth-wise voting patterns.
• The Election Commission highlighted that neither the Representation of the People Act nor the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, recognize or regulate totalisers.
• The EC stated that substantive amendments would be required to incorporate totalisers into the electoral process.
• The Law Commission of India, in its 255th report, had previously suggested the selective use of totalisers.
• The EC also argued that totalisers would reduce transparency by masking booth-level data, which is currently available through Form 17C.
• The current system of Form 17C allows candidates and agents to match vote counts and is crucial for adjudications before election tribunals.
• Totalisers would aggregate votes, making it difficult to identify or verify technical malfunctions or human errors in individual EVMs.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Totaliser: A machine that consolidates and counts votes from multiple EVM control units simultaneously, without disclosing booth-specific results.
• EVM (Electronic Voting Machine): An electronic device used to record and count votes in elections.
• Representation of the People Act: A parliamentary act that governs the conduct of elections in India.
• Form 17C: A statutory form used to record the account of votes recorded in each EVM at a polling station.