Election Commission calls vote-mismatch claims on 2024 polls 'misleading', publishes seat-wise figures

The Election Commission of India has rejected claims that votes counted in several 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies did not match the votes cast, calling them misleading and releasing constituency-wise figures to support its position.

In a fact-check posted on X, the Commission said many of the social media posts had treated the total number of registered electors in a seat as the number of votes polled, and then presented the gap between that figure and the votes counted as missing or extra votes.

The seats in question

For Mumbai North, posts had said about 18.11 lakh votes were polled but only 10.33 lakh counted. The Commission said 18.11 lakh was roughly the number of electors; 10,36,496 votes were polled and 10,35,731 counted, a turnout of 57.2 per cent. In Srinagar, where posts alleged excess votes, it said 6,76,408 votes were polled and 6,75,399 counted, and that there was no instance of extra votes being counted.

In Haryana, the state's Chief Electoral Officer separately took on the figures for Kaithal. According to the official index card, the seat had 2,23,449 electors and 1,68,851 votes polled including postal ballots. The CEO said the report had compared counted votes against a total that left out postal votes, and added that the Reporters' Collective could have contacted the office for clarification.

The Commission said small differences between votes polled and counted are explained by postal ballots, mock-poll votes and votes not retrieved from control units, and that Form 17C, shared with candidates' agents at each polling station, is the statutory record of votes cast.

The other side

The claims stem from an investigation published by the Reporters' Collective, which examined internal records for 63 parliamentary and 467 Assembly constituencies in the three regions and reported mismatches in more than 50 of them. It argued the Commission had not published or explained these records, and said it would rather share its data publicly than in confidence as the Commission had asked. National Herald, reporting on the investigation, noted that it did not prove rigging but raised questions about record-keeping. Reports of the Commission's fact-check did not carry a response from the Collective or from political parties.

Why it matters

The exchange comes as Opposition parties keep up pressure on the Commission over the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. How transparently the poll body handles booth-level data is central to public trust in results.