Jagdeep S. Chhokar 
On January 7, 2025, the Election Commission of India (ECI) held an hour-long press conference ostensibly to announce the dates for Delhi assembly election. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar, the only speaker of the event, spoke for over 41 minutes before he came “to the schedule”.
During these minutes, he gave an explanation on the issue of voter mismatch and said the following:
“Agar machine (EVM) on nahi hui, machine me mismatch hua, agar kisi machine ke on hone me galat hua ya mock poll ka data nahi hataya gaya – sade dus lakh me 1, 2, 3, 4 jagah aisa ho sakta hai – us machine ko ek taraf rakha jata hai. (If the machine does not switch on, there’s a mismatch, there’s some wrongdoing in switching on the machine, or if the mock poll data is not erased – out of 10 and a half lakh, this can happen in 1, 2, 3 4 places – that machine will then be kept on the side.)
Jab counting poori ho jati hai toh dekha jata hai ki jo winning margin hai. Agar wo uss ek machine se kam hai toh (When the counting is over, the winning margin is checked. If that is found to be less than that one machine)… then the VVPAT slips of that machine are counted. Otherwise, it is kept aside. Therefore, that much would be counted less but it does not have any consequence as far as the result is concerned because the margins are too high. And then, Form 20 with exact details of candidates winning and losing are given to the candidates”.
This was presumably a response to a press conference by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) on an analysis titled ‘Discrepancies between the votes cast and the votes counted in the 2024 Lok Sabha Election: Multiple perspectives’ organised at the Press Club of India in Delhi on July 29, 2024. The speakers of this presser included two ADR representatives, an independent senior journalist, and an academic spoke.
Also read: Can India’s Elections be Truly Free and Fair with EVM as Deus Ex Machina?
The analysis – based on data taken from the ECI’s website – showed that there were discrepancies in the votes cast and votes counted (only in EVMs, not taking postal ballots into account) in 538 of the 543 constituencies in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The press conference was also followed by a detailed letter addressed by name to the CEC and the other two election commissioners. To date, there has been no response, not even an acknowledgment, to the letter.
Did the ECI’s comment on voter mismatch even address the concerns?
The whole presser by the election commission lasted exactly for one hour and 11 minutes and 40 seconds. CEC Kumar’s statement – “that much would be less counted” – makes it clear that he was referring only to instances where the number of votes counted are less than the number of votes polled.
It is worth mentioning that para 6 of the letter to the election commissioners by ADR states:
“Overall difference between EVM votes counted and EVM votes polled: In 362 parliamentary constituencies, a total of 5,54,598 votes counted are less than the votes polled. In 176 parliamentary constituencies, a total of 35,093 votes have been counted in excess of the votes polled. Each and every vote is important and must be accounted for, hence the citizens want the ECI to state the reasons for the above stated discrepancies.”
All that the CEC did at the press conference is provide a generalised and plausible explanation for votes counted less than the votes polled – the total number of which was 5,54,598 in 362 parliamentary constituencies.
He completely ignored a total of 35,093 votes in 176 parliamentary constituencies where the votes counted were more than the votes polled.
Also read: In 140+ LS Seats, More EVM Votes Were Counted Than EVM Votes Polled. What’s Going On?
Kumar also did not say anything new – all he did was summarise what the chief electoral officer (CEO) of UP had said on X months ago, in response to a tweet by the same academic who was a speaker at the ADR press conference.
The CEO-UP’s post read:
“The difference can arise between votes polled and votes counted because there are certain polling stations whose votes polled are not counted as per the extant protocol issued by the Commission and provided in various Manuals and Handbooks (e.g Para 11.4 of the Handbook for Counting Agent). The polling stations whose votes polled are not counted are of two categories:
(1) Where the Presiding Officer by mistake fails to clear the Mock Poll data from the Control Unit before starting the actual poll or he fails to remove Mock Poll slips from the VVPAT before starting the actual poll.
(2) The total votes polled in the Control Unit does not match the record of votes in Form 17-C prepared by the Presiding Officer and who records incorrect number by mistake.
The votes of above two categories of polling stations are counted towards the end of the counting only in the case if sum total of votes polled in all such polling stations is equal to or greater than the margin between the first and the second candidate. If it is lower than the margin then the votes are not counted at all and therefore there arises a difference between total votes polled by EVMs and votes counted.”
What is the point of a generalised explanation?
The election commission’s obliviousness to such a generalised explanation is astonishing, at the very least, because anyone who thinks about the importance of the electoral process in India – the largest democracy in the world – cannot be oblivious to this.
Counting of votes in an election can be compared to the tallying of transactions at a branch of a bank at the end of the working day, although the comparison is not totally fair because the vote of a citizen cannot be assigned a monetary value.
Nevertheless, if the details of the bank transactions do not tally at the end of the day and there is a difference of only one rupee in the tally, the branch authority does not say that they will put in one rupee from their own pocket and complete that tallying exercise. The branch goes back to all the transactions and double-checks the record of each transaction in detail to find out where the mistake occurred, and then corrects the record.
Similarly, if there is discrepancy of even one vote in a polling booth, the ECI officials in-charge of the booth must account for that particular vote. They should tell the voters what exactly happened and how.
When a chief electoral officer and, to top it all, the chief election commissioner, who are constitutionally responsible for the proper conduct of all the elections across the country, say it is possible that, some presiding officer by mistake failed to clear the mock poll data from the control unit before the polls or he fails to remove mock poll slips from the VVPAT before the polls, and some presiding officer recorded incorrect numbers by mistake, it is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in the democratic processes of the largest democracy in the world.
The very least that is expected from an institution that claims to be the “gold standard” in election management in the world is to provide detailed and specific explanation for each constituency – if not each polling booth – about the following:
- Number of votes actually cast by (a) the EVM, and (b) postal ballots
- Number of votes counted from (a) the EVM, and (b) postal ballots.
- Real number of discrepancies, if any, between points 1 and 2.
- Specific reasons for the discrepancies for each individual EVM, such as:
- How many votes or VVPAT slips (actual and specific numbers) were not removed after the mock poll, or
- In which particular and specific cases did the presiding officer record wrongly in Form 17-C the total votes polled, and what were the actual number of votes recorded wrongly, or
- How many EVMs and which booths had problems in starting or being switched ON, as the CEC said, and what exactly was the number of votes affected by this particular false start?
A generalised and plausible explanation for such high numbers of votes being counted less, and completely overlooking 176 parliamentary constituencies where a total of 35,093 votes were counted in excess, will just not do.
Discrepancies in as many as 538 out of 543 (99.079%) constituencies is a figure that cannot be explained away by vague statements.
Will the constitutional institution whose motto, as repeatedly described by its head, is “Disclosure, Disclosure, Disclosure” come up to these expectations? The nation awaits a response.
Jagdeep S. Chhokar is a concerned citizen of India.