SC seeks Centre’s stand on use of totalisers in polls; EC warns against risks, flags public misapprehensions against EVMs

A totaliser connects a cluster of 14 control units of EVMs used at 14 polling stations via a cable, which in turn would provide a consolidated result for each candidate in that group of EVMs. Representational file image. | Photo Credit: M. Govarthan The Supreme Court on Tuesday (September 1, 2026) sought the Centre’s response on the use of ‘totalisers’, which are machines designed to consolidate and count votes from multiple Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) Control Units simultaneously without revealing booth-wise voting trends, as a “fall-back option”.The court’s order to the Union government came despite a warning from the Election Commission of India that bringing in totalisers now, when even EVMs are subject to frequent public questioning, may not be the right move.“It is relevant to state that the present time is one in which the functioning and integrity of EVMs are still a subject of frequent public questioning… In such a climate, the introduction of new and as yet unregulated mechanisms such as totaliser could give rise to fresh allegations and controversy, thereby further complicating public confidence in an already sensitive area of the electoral process,” the Election Commission (EC) cautioned.The EC pointed out that there was a complete absence of a legal framework — neither the Representation of the People Act nor the Conduct of Election Rules,1961 or any allied enactment contain any provision recognising, regulating or governing the use of a totaliser in counting votes. The EC said substantive amendments and revision of statutory procedure governing the counting of votes would have to be made to include totalisers in the electoral process.“The response from political parties to totalisers is a big ‘no’. Three out of six national parties and 18 out of 29 State parties opposed the idea of totaliser. Only the Law Commission of India, in its 255th report, suggested their selective use,” senior advocate Seshadhri Naidu, for the Election Commission, submitted.The court was hearing a petition filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, who argued that totalisers would safeguard the privacy of individual voters and protect them from reprisals. Mr. Upadhyay said political parties victimise voters at the local level after identifying voting patterns in particular polling booths.A totaliser connects a cluster of 14 control units of EVMs used at 14 polling stations via a cable, which in turn would provide a consolidated result for each candidate in that group of EVMs.Totalisers may reduce transparency: ECEC, in an affidavit, said totalisers would reduce transparency. Currently, polling as well as counting is conducted in the presence of the candidates and their agents. They are provided an opportunity through Form 17C to match vote count at the end of polling and after counting at every polling station. Form 17C data comparisons are also used at the time of adjudications before election tribunals and courts.“The one-to-one, booth-wise and EVM-wise correspondence under Form 17C constitute the backbone of the self-verifying and transparent character of the present counting process. The transparency is necessary to give credence to the outcome of the elections. This knowledge of booth-level voting pattern may be utilised by political parties to improve their outreach programme in the booths where they have not performed up to their expectations, and make corrective organisational decisions,” the EC said.Totalisers would mask technical malfunction, human error in individual EVMs.“EVMs clubbed together would stand concealed within the aggregate figure, and would become incapable of being identified, or independently verified by any party to the election… Totaliser, by its very design, aggregates the votes recorded across polling booths at a single point without preserving a distinct booth-wise, machine-wise trail,” the EC said.The EC, however, said its main worry was whether totaliser would become fodder for further misapprehension about EVMs.“Public confidence is the bedrock of democratic legitimacy. In recent electoral cycles, the integrity of EVMs and counting mechanisms has faced intense public scrutiny, persistent litigation and widespread misapprehensions… Introducing an intermediate aggregating device like the totaliser, which adds a layer of algorithmic pooling between individual EVMs and the final tally, would generate fresh anxieties, allegations of data integrity, machine tampering and transmission glitches,” the EC submitted. Published - September 01, 2026 02:18 pm IST