Lok Sabha Election Results 2024: How Votes Will Be Counted
Here's an explainer into the process of counting votes.
The last phase of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 took place on June 1, and the counting of votes will begin on Tuesday. The Election Commission of India on Monday announced guidelines for the counting process, including explaining what postal ballots are and why they're counted first.
When Does Counting Begin?
Counting will begin at 8 a.m. on Tuesday.
Vote Counting Process
The electronic voting machines will be unsealed in the presence of representatives of all political parties.
Postal ballots will be counted first. EVM vote counting will begin half an hour after that.
Votes registered across all EVMs of a parliamentary constituency are counted; results are announced and written on a blackboard before moving on to the next round of counting.
This is done electronically through the in-built features of the EVM. The Election Commission implemented the VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) system in 2013 to verify the counting results and ensure that the EVMs are working as per standard.
VVPAT is connected to all EVMs. When a vote is cast, the VVPAT system generates a corresponding paper slip, which is visible to the voter for around seven seconds before falling into a deep box.
On counting day, the ECI verifies EVM results from five randomly selected assembly segments per constituency.
When all the above measures are taken and a final tally is reached, the winning candidate of the PC is declared.
About Postal Ballots
Absentee voting is conducted through postal ballots in India. The following groups of people are eligible for postal ballots:
Military and government workers on election duty are away from home.
People who cannot go to the polling station due to work, sickness or disability.
Election workers at a different polling station.
Those detained before the election.
Why Are Postal Ballots Counted First?
As per the Supreme Court, the postal ballots must be counted and declared first. In 2019, this was ignored, and EVM votes were counted and declared first. Due to this, there was a huge outcry in certain constituencies where the margin of victory was less than the number of postal ballots.
Rounds Of Counting
In each round of counting, votes from 14 EVMs are counted under the supervision of the returning officer. This occurs in one large hall. At the end of each round of counting, the results from 14 EVMs are declared.
The results of five random EVMs from every assembly segment are verified against the VVPAT. Once votes from all EVMs, electronically transferred postal ballots, and postal ballots have been counted, the returning officer declares the results of the constituency.
In case there's a discrepancy between the EVM results and the VVPAT results, the VVPAT results will be used. However, there's no statement on whether such a discrepancy will lead to recounting/verification of all other EVMs in the constituency or not.
