Data by presiding officers to be final in the event of conflict: ECI

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Sunday said that in the event of any “conflict” in voter turnout data, the primary figures filled in statutory forms by booth-level presiding officers will take precedence, with the crucial clarification coming amid growing scrutiny over the accuracy of data shared on poll body’s official platforms.

The announcement comes at a time when the ECI is preparing to launch ECINET — a new digital interface for voters, poll officials and political parties which will integrate over 40 of its existing mobile and web applications, including the Voter Turnout App.

According to the poll body, the platform is being developed following an extensive consultative exercise involving 36 chief electoral officers, 767 district election officers, and 4,123 electoral registration officers across states and Union territories. ECINET will allow users to access electoral data on desktops and smartphones, ECI said in a press release on Sunday.

“To ensure that data is as accurate as possible, the data on ECINET will be entered solely by authorised ECI officials. Entry by the concerned official would ensure that the data made available to stakeholders is as accurate as possible. However, in case of any conflict, the primary data as duly filled in statutory forms will prevail,” it added.

The ECI statement effectively means that for voter turnout figures, Form 17C — which records booth-wise voter turnout data filled by presiding officers — will be treated as the final record in case of discrepancies with data displayed on its portal and app.

In addition to the Voter Turnout App, ECINET will also absorb platforms such as the Voter Helpline, cVIGIL (for reporting model code violations), the Affidavit Portal, and others. The initiative aims to benefit nearly one billion eligible voters, 1.05 million booth level officers, 1.5 million booth level agents of political parties, nearly 4.5 million polling officials, and 15,597 assistant electoral registration officers.

The clarification gains significance amid growing criticism from various opposition parties, which accused ECI of voter data manipulation.

Last month, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged at an event in the that the poll body was “compromised” and that “something is wrong with the system”.

“The Election Commission gave us a voting figure for 5.30 pm, and between 5.30 pm and 7.30 pm, 65 lakh (6.5 million) voters voted. This is physically impossible. For a voter to vote, it takes approximately three minutes and, if you do the math, it would mean that there were lines of voters till 2 am but this did not happen,” the former Congress chief had said.

Rejecting the claims, ECI underlined that 6.40 crore (64 million) electors who reached the polling stations from 7 am to 6 pm voted in the Maharashtra polls, which effectively meant about 58 lakh (5.8 million) votes were polled per hour on an hour.

“Going by these average trends, nearly 116 lakh (11.6 million) voters could have voted in the last two hours. Therefore, casting of 65 lakh (6.5 million) votes by electors in two hours is much below the average hourly voting trend,” ECI had said in a statement, days after Gandhi’s allegations.