‘Indiscriminate disclosure of polling station-wise voter turnout data on website will cause chaos’

New Delhi: The Election Commission on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that “indiscriminate disclosure” of polling station-wise voter turnout data and posting it on website will cause chaos in the election machinery which is already in motion for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

The poll panel said that public posting of Form 17C - which gives the number of votes polled in a polling station - is not provided in the statutory framework and could lead to mischief and vitiation of the entire electoral space as it increases the possibility of the images being morphed.

The EC also dismissed as false and misleading the allegation that the first two phases of the Lok Sabha elections saw an increase of “5-6 per cent” in the voter turnout data released on the day of polling and in the subsequent press releases for each of the two phases.

The Election Commission stated this in an affidavit filed in response to a plea of an NGO seeking a direction to the poll panel to upload polling station-wise voter turnout data on its website within 48 hours of the conclusion of polling for each phase of the Lok Sabha elections.

“It is submitted that if the reliefs sought by the petitioner is allowed, it will not only be in teeth of the aforesaid legal position but will also cause chaos in the election machinery which is already in motion for the ongoing General Elections to the Lok Sabha, 2024,” the poll panel said in its 225-page affidavit.

It said the petitioner NGO ‘Association of Democratic Reforms’ has failed to mention a single instance where candidates or voters had filed an election petition on the basis of the allegations raised by the petitioner with respect to the Lok Sabha election in 2019.

“This indicates that the allegation of discrepancies in voter turnout data made by the petitioner in the main petition as well as the present application is misleading, false and based on mere suspicion,” it said.

The EC added that the legal regime with regard to Form 17C is peculiar in that while it authorises the polling agent at the close of the poll to get a copy of Form 17C, a general disclosure of the nature as sought by the petitioner is not provided in the statutory framework. “It is submitted that a wholesome disclosure of Form 17C is amenable to mischief and vitiation of the entire electoral space.