What’s in the news?

• The Election Commission of India strongly refuted allegations by a national party that the delay in the release of final voter turnouts indicated an attempt to tamper the final results.

Form 17A and Form 17C

• As per the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, there are two forms that have data on the number of electors and voters namely, Forms 17A and 17C.
  • Form 17A is a register of voters, in which polling officials record the details of every voter who comes into the booth and signs the register. 
  • Form 17C  is the account of the votes recorded. 

About Form 17C

• • The provision of Form 17C is a statutory requirement. It is issued to the polling agents of candidates at the close of polling.

• Form 17C contains:

• • the identification numbers of the EVMs used in the polling station; 
  • the total number of electors assigned to the polling station; 
  • the total number of voters as entered in the register for voters (Form 17A); 
  • the number of voters who decided not to record their votes after signing the register; 
  • the number of voters who were not allowed to vote; and 
  • the total number of test votes to be deducted, and total number of votes recorded per EVM.
  • Part-II of the same form carries the results of the counting, which are entered on counting day.

• The data in Form 17C are considered final, and is the record that is to be used in a possible legal challenge.
• The data in Form 17C are also used by candidates to verify the results on counting day. The number of electors and those who cast their votes as recorded in Form 17C can be matched with the EVM count.
• On the day of counting, the counting supervisor must certify in Part-II of the form that there is no discrepancy in the votes counted and the votes recorded in Part-I on polling day. This is countersigned by all candidates or their representatives, and discrepancies, if any, can be challenged.

Why is there a demand to make the Form 17C data public?

• Activists have sought full transparency. 
• They say that even if Form 17C is made available to the candidates’ agents, given the large numbers of polling stations at each constituency, difficulties of coordination, and shortage of resources, many candidates find it impossible to collate all the figures for the constituency as a whole.

Voter Turnout Application

• Launched by: The Election Commission of India. This application has been used in the second phase of the elections.
• It provides live information about the estimated voter turnout during the poll. The application captures the real-time information from the data that is input by the Returning Officers and calculates the estimated totals and displays in the user-friendly android mobile application. 
• The application is designed to show the Estimated Voter Turnout for each State which can further be drilled down to Parliamentary Constituency level and also to Assembly Constituency level. 
• This new mechanism will simplify the data entry of two-hourly voter turnout and help in timely dissemination of the information on a real-time basis.
• To ensure near real-time update of the voter turnout, another mobile app ‘Suvidha Admin’ has been given to all Assistant Returning Officers / Returning Officers to make the entries of the voter turnout data.

Sources

• https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-politics/lok-sabha-elections-2024-turnouts-delays-form-17c-9321149/
• https://hindi.eci.gov.in/files/file/9923-voter-turnout-app/