SC seeks Centre’s response on use of EVM Totalisers
Why in News?
The Supreme Court has sought the Union government’s response on introducing totaliser machines for counting votes recorded in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
The proposal seeks to conceal polling-station-wise voting patterns and protect communities from intimidation, discrimination or post-election reprisals. The Election Commission of India (ECI), however, has raised legal, technical and transparency concerns.
| UPSC Relevance: GS-2 Polity and Governance: Electoral reforms, Election Commission Prelims: EVM Totalisers Mains: Electoral reforms, Right to privacy, free and fair elections. |
What is a Totaliser?
- A totaliser connects the control units of several EVMs and displays only the consolidated votes received by each candidate. Unlike the present system, it does not publicly disclose how voters at a particular polling station voted.
- It protects locational or community anonymity, although the existing EVM system already maintains the secrecy of each individual vote.
Why are Totalisers Proposed?
- Protection against reprisals: Booth-wise results may enable candidates to identify villages or neighbourhoods that voted against them and allegedly discriminate in welfare delivery or development works.
- Protection of vulnerable communities: Voting patterns in small or socially homogeneous booths may indirectly reveal the political preference of particular caste, religious or tribal groups.
- Free voter choice: Greater anonymity can reduce intimidation, vote-buying and pressure from locally dominant groups.
- Parity with paper ballots: Rule 59A of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, permits ballot papers from different booths to be mixed where intimidation or victimisation is apprehended.
- Institutional support: The ECI proposed totalisers in 2008. The 255th Law Commission Report (2015) subsequently endorsed their selective use where intimidation or victimisation was feared.
Concerns Raised by the Election Commission:
- Absence of a legal framework: Neither the Representation of the People Act, 1951 nor the Conduct of Elections Rules presently regulates totaliser-based counting.
- Reduced auditability: Form 17C currently allows candidates and their agents to match the votes recorded at each polling station with the corresponding EVM result.
- Masking of errors: Aggregation may make it difficult to identify a malfunction, procedural mistake or discrepancy associated with an individual EVM.
- VVPAT reconciliation: The system must preserve the linkage between every EVM and its VVPAT slips for verification and election disputes.
- Public confidence: Introducing another device amid existing doubts about EVMs may create fresh allegations unless its operation is transparent.
- Political opposition: According to the ECI, half the national parties and around 68% of the consulted State parties opposed the proposal.
Constitutional Dimensions:
- Article 324 entrusts the ECI with the superintendence, direction and control of elections.
- Sections 94 and 128 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 protect voting secrecy.
- The Supreme Court has recognised the secret ballot as integral to free and fair elections and the voter’s freedom of expression under Article 19(1)(a).
However, electoral integrity also requires transparency, verifiability and access to evidence for candidates and election tribunals. Thus, the issue is not simply secrecy versus disclosure, but community anonymity versus machine-level auditability.
Way Forward:
- Amend the Conduct of Elections Rules to create a Rule 59A-like provision for EVMs.
- Initially employ totalisers only in constituencies where intimidation, communal tension or post-poll victimisation is credibly apprehended.
- Publish consolidated results while preserving booth-wise Form 17C and EVM data confidentially for authorised audits and judicial scrutiny.
- Complete EVM-VVPAT verification before votes are aggregated.
- Mandate independent technical certification, mock demonstrations, audit logs and candidate-agent participation.
- Constitute clusters through transparent or random criteria to prevent politically motivated grouping.
- Undertake pilot projects and build all-party confidence before nationwide adoption.
Totalisers can strengthen the substantive secrecy of elections by preventing the political profiling of neighbourhoods and communities. However, voter privacy cannot come at the cost of verifiable counting.
A legally regulated, selectively deployed and fully auditable totaliser system can reconcile the two essential foundations of electoral democracy: a fearless voter and a transparent count.