SC seeks Centre, EC views on introducing ‘totalisers’ to count votes in clusters

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Union government to submit its views on introducing a totaliser system to count votes recorded in a cluster of electronic voting machines, reported Live Law.

At present, votes cast in elections are counted booth-wise. A totaliser would allow votes recorded in multiple machines to be counted together. This can make it difficult to determine how any particular booth voted.

The petitioners in the case have argued that introducing a totaliser system can prevent a candidate or a political party from knowing how much support they received at a particular booth, thereby reducing the chances of post-poll violence, reported Live Law.

They have sought that election results be declared at the parliamentary constituency level, instead of disclosing booth-wise figures separately.

On Tuesday, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana asked the Union government to state if there were hurdles in introducing the system and whether it could have any adverse effects, reported Live Law.

The bench also asked the Election Commission to submit its proposal on the matter to the government.

During the hearing, Kant asked if there was a need for the totaliser system, saying that the booth-wise counting process allows discrepancies or tampering to be detected.

One of the petitioners told the court that...

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