The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday said that no inconsistency was found between the votes polled in as per Form 17C under the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, and the declared results as per Form 20, in the general elections of 2019.
The Commission filed a statement in the EVM-VVPAT case, stating that the discrepancy was with the live voter turnout data, which was uploaded on its website, and not with the EVM. It further explained that the data was published on the website on a real-time basis based on input from the presiding officers of polling stations.
The statement was filed in response to a 2019 news report of ‘The Quint,’ which alleged discrepancies between votes polled and counted in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The report alleged that there was a mismatch between the votes polled and counted in 373 constituencies.
On April 16, the Bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta directed the Commission to file a response over the petitions seeking complete verification of EVM against VVPAT records.
The petitioners seeking 100 percent verification of EVMs had cited the report in the Supreme Court, questioning the credibility of EVMs.
Responding to the argument, the ECI said that there was no inconsistency between the votes polled as per Form 17C under the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, and the declared results as per Form 20.
Form 17 of the Conduct of Election Rules 1951 is an account of the number of votes recorded in a voting machine. Form 20 is the final result sheet for recording the results of voting at polling stations. Essentially, the ECI is saying that there is no mismatch between the number of votes polled and votes counted.
It said Quint has not disclosed that the discrepancy was with respect to live voter turnout data uploaded on the ECI website during the 2019 General Elections. The discrepancy in voter turnout data has nothing to do with the EVM.
During the 2019 Parliamentary elections, a mechanism was adopted to give a real-time approximation of voter turnout. The data was published on the ECI website on a real-time basis by taking inputs from the Presiding Officers of polling stations, it added.
The Supreme Court is hearing the EVM-VVPAT case. Today was the second day of hearing.
Earlier on Tuesday, Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for one of the petitioners, referred to this report and submitted that the Election Commission was ‘resolutely’ silent on this.