'No legal mandate to disclose final voter turnout numbers': EC in affidavit to SC

The Election Commission stated in an affidavit to the Supreme Court that there is no legal requirement to share the final voter turnout data of all polling stations with anyone other than the candidate or their agents, TOI reported.

The poll panel also pointed out that turnout data of each polling booth is shared with polling agents of candidates on the day of voting itself and said giving out final voter turnout numbers based on Form 17C would lead to "confusion among voters as it will also include postal ballot counts'.

The EC filed the affidavit on Wednesday in response to the application by NGO "Association for Democratic Reforms' (ADR), which has sought that final voter turnout figures of all polling stations be made public in 48 hours.


"ADR's application ignores the disclaimer to the effect that the figures in the non-statutory voter turnout app is secondary data and is only provisional in nature," TOI quoted EC's affidavit.

Election Commission accused the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) of "trying to create entitlement when none exists in the law by way of filing an application in the middle of an election period".

"In any electoral contest, the margin of victory may be very close. In such scenarios, making Form 17C public may lead to voter confusion about the total votes cast, as it would combine votes from Form 17C and postal ballots. Nevertheless, this distinction may not be clear to voters and could be exploited by individuals with ulterior motives to criticize the entire electoral process, potentially disrupting the already operational election machinery.

"The voter turnout data is facilitative and a transparency initiative of the commission, in addition to extant statutory design of providing exact turnout data of each polling booth to polling agents of candidates," EC added.

'Vested interests'
The poll panel also rebutted allegations of increase in voting percentage days after polling possibly being a sign of change of EVMs and said, "Vested interests habitually throw baseless charges' during elections to create suspicion and discredit the exercise to demotivate voters.

"There are certain elements and vested interests who keep on throwing baseless and false allegations, creating unwarranted atmosphere of suspicion in close proximity of time of conduct of every elections by the EC to somehow discredit the same," EC said.

It stressed that other countries were looking forward to the efficacy of conduct of elections in the largest democracy where 97 crore voters will exercise their franchise in seven phases, and said, "There is a consistent mala fide campaign/design/effort to keep on raising suspicion and doubt in every possible manner and by misleading assertions and baseless allegations regarding the conduct of elections."

The latest charges from ADR were mentioned after a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta dismissed its petition on April 26. The petition sought a return to ballot paper and the allegations about the efficacy of EVMs made by the NGO were rejected.

ADR submitted the application in its pending petition, which dates back to 2019, shortly after leaders of Congress, TMC, and CPM raised concerns with the EC. The concerns were regarding the significant increase in voter turnout figures following the first and second phases of the polls. The Supreme Court will be hearing the case on May 24.

The Election Commission (EC) based its decision on six significant judgments of the Supreme Court (SC) dating back to 1952. These judgments reiterated that courts would not entertain any petitions or applications during the election process.

Any grievances regarding elections must be addressed through an election petition after the process is complete and results are declared. Therefore, the Election Commission stated that the current application by ADR was not maintainable.

The Election Commission stated that as five out of seven phases of polling had already occurred, the process for announcing the voting percentage could not be altered for the final two phases set for May 25 and June 1.

Regarding ADR's request to upload voter turnout percentages by constituency and polling station on the EC website, the commission mentioned that the matter concerning the declaration of voting percentages had been thoroughly examined by the bench of Justices Khanna and Datta.

(With TOI inputs)