Why Election Commission is working on releasing voter turnout figures faster

On May 4 this year, the Commission announced that it would launch a new app, ECINET, in which all existing apps would be subsumed. This was among the initiatives launched after Gyanesh Kumar took charge as Chief Election Commissioner in February.

On Tuesday, the ECI said that the new app would also enable faster reporting of voter turnout trends.

Currently, the presiding officer of each polling station relays the voter turnout numbers to a sector officer who is responsible for a few polling stations, and to the Returning Officer of the constituency over the phone or through messages. These data are then manually collated and the turnout for the constituency is entered into the Voter Turnout app every two hours.

The new system will allow each presiding officer to directly enter the turnout figures into the ECINET app every two hours. Through the app, the turnout for the constituency will be calculated automatically and displayed for the public.

What was the controversy regarding voter turnout last year?

After the first two phases of voting in the Lok Sabha elections of last year, the ECI released tentative turnout figures as of 7 pm on polling day through press releases, with the caveat that the final turnout figures were likely to be higher as reports were yet to come in from all polling stations, particularly those in remote areas.

While polling was scheduled until 6 pm, in many places it went on until later to enable all those who were in line at the cut-off time to cast their votes.

The next official release from the ECI on the turnout numbers came 11 days after the first phase and four days after the second phase, and showed the turnout 5 to 6 percentage points higher than the numbers released on the voting days.

Opposition parties questioned the ECI on both the “delay” in releasing the numbers and the increase in turnout. In a letter to his INDIA bloc allies on May 6, 2024, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge asked if there was an “attempt to doctor the final results” behind the delay.

How did the ECI respond to the allegations?

The ECI wrote to Kharge on May 10, 2024, refuting the allegations and denying that there had been any unusual delay.

It recalled that during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it had released turnout figures five to seven days after polling in phases, and there was a gap of 1 percentage point to 3 percentage points between the tentative numbers released on poll day and the final ones.

The ECI said it takes time for polling parties to arrive at headquarters, particularly in remote areas. The polling parties’ first task is to complete the statutory formalities, and the updation of voter turnout data is not among them.

Each candidate, however, has the booth-wise turnout figures through Form 17C, which is given to their polling agents at the close of the poll. The Form 17C is a statutory requirement under the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961.

From the third phase of the elections onwards, the ECI began issuing another press release around midnight with the updated turnout figure at 11.40 pm on poll day, and released the percentages, total number of electors, and total number of voters for each phase three to four days after polling.