Context: A three-judge Supreme Court Bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant directed the Central government to clearly state its position on introducing totaliser machines for counting Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) votes.
About Totaliser:
What is a Totaliser?
- A totaliser is a specialized hardware interface designed to aggregate and count votes recorded across a cluster of approximately 14 EVMs simultaneously. It was jointly engineered by public sector undertakings Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Bengaluru, and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), Hyderabad.
How It Works and Preserves Voter Secrecy?
- Cluster Connection: The control units of up to 14 EVMs from different polling stations are connected via cables to the totaliser interface.
- Consolidated Tally: When the result button on the totaliser is pressed, it displays the combined votes obtained by each candidate across the entire group of 14 booths as a single consolidated figure.
- Masking Booth Trends: By pooling the results, it eliminates individual, booth-by-booth vote tallies. Because polling booths in India are organized geographically, individual booth counts make it easy to identify how specific neighborhoods, villages, or demographic clusters voted. Totalisers effectively obscure these micro-level voting patterns.
Centre’s Position: Why It Opposes Totalisers
- Targeted Governance: Booth-level results help representatives identify areas needing greater development and welfare attention.
- Limited Risk of Victimisation: The Centre argues that widespread voter intimidation is unlikely amid strong media and public scrutiny.
- Technical Concerns: Linking totalisers may require de-sealing EVMs, creating potential security and data-leak risks.
Election Commission of India’s Stand:
- Supports Ballot Secrecy: The ECI proposed totalisers in 2008 and supported them before the Supreme Court in 2018 to strengthen voter secrecy.
- Legal & Audit Challenges: Implementation requires amendments to the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961. Aggregated counting may also complicate VVPAT verification, Form 17C reconciliation, and identification of booth-specific discrepancies.
Supreme Court’s Stand
- Protect Voter Secrecy: The Court observed that revealing booth-wise voting patterns could expose communities to harassment or retaliation.
- Asked for Review: It sought the Centre’s technical, legal and logistical concerns and asked the ECI to submit its updated proposal.
Significance:
- Eliminates the vulnerability of isolated or caste-segregated rural settlements and urban slums that are prone to selective deprivation of municipal amenities when voting trends are revealed.
- Removes leverage from local political leaders who attempt to intimidate residents with threats of water, electricity, or welfare fund cutoffs.
