No legal mandate to make booth wise votes polled public; will confuse voters: ECI to Supreme Court

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that there is no legal right that can be claimed towards publishing final authenticated data of voter turnout in all polling stations..In an affidavit filed before the apex court, the poll body stated that disclosure of voter turnout data based on Form 17C (votes polled in each polling station) will cause confusion among voters as it will also include postal ballot counts."In any electoral contest, the margin of victory may be very close. In such cases, disclosure of Form 17C in public domain may cause confusion in the minds of the voters with regard to the total votes polled as the latter figure would include the number of votes polled as per Form 17C as well as the votes received through postal ballots. However, such difference may not be easily understood by the voters and may be used by persons with motivated interests to cast aspersion on the whole electoral process ... cause chaos in the election machinery which is already in motion," the affidavit said.The affidavit was filed opposing an application by NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) seeking disclosure of final authenticated data of voter turnout in all polling stations including the number of votes polled in the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 within 48 hours of the polling.The ECI in its affidavit also attacked ADR and contended that certain "vested interests" keep on throwing false allegations at it to discredit its working."There is a consistent malafide campaign/design/efforts to keep on raising suspicion and doubt in every possible manner and by misleading assertions and baseless allegations regarding the conduct of elections by the Election Commission of India ... the design and pattern in play is to spread doubts and damage is done by the time the truth ... comes out," it was submitted. The poll body stated that ADR has been claiming a legal entitlement where none exists, that too amidst the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.The ECI relied on the strictures passed against ADR in the recent EVM judgment of the apex court, and stated that the 'tenor, language, design of the public messaging including tweets and social media posts made by the petitioner during many stages of hearing of the cases before the Supreme Court should be taken note of."The petitioners are not approaching the Hon'ble courts with clean hands and to misuse the forum of the Court with an agenda to perpetually keep creating doubt in the mind of voters based on conspiracy theory. It is also pertinent to state that the petitioners have not been able to prove the assertions in none of the cases, either on purity of electoral roll or EVMs.".The ECI affidavit was filed after the Supreme Court asked the the poll body to respond to ADR's plea.The application by ADR was filed in light of the recent controversy surrounding the substantial increase in the final voter turn out announced by the ECI for the first two phases of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections as compared to initial estimate announced on the voting day.The application highlighted that the data published on April 30 showed a sharp increase (by about 5-6%) of final voter turn out as compared to the initial percentages announced by ECI on the day of polling.This coupled with the delay in announcing the voter turn out has led to concerns among voters and political parties about the correctness of such data, the plea said.The application was moved by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) in a 2019 case.The application has sought directions to the ECI to upload scanned, legible copies of Form 17C Part-I (Account of Votes Recorded), on its website.The data should be uploaded after each phase of polling in the ongoing 2024 elections and must provide constituency and polling station-wise figures of voter turnout in absolute numbers and in percentage form, the application stated.Additionally, ADR has sought disclosure of the Part- II of Form 17C which contains the candidate-wise result of counting after the compilation of results.ADR alleged that there has been a dereliction of duty on the part of the ECI in declaring election results through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) based on accurate and indisputable data.