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Election Commission shows totaliser to political parties

New Delhi: The Election Commission on Wednesday held a meeting with recognised political parties on the use of totaliser machines for counting of votes by mixing. At present, votes are counted polling station-wise, which reveals the votes polled by each candidate.

“In order to avoid the possibility of any intimidation and victimisation of electors, the Commission has proposed to use the totaliser machine in specified constituencies, and is of the opinion that it is absolutely necessary that votes recorded in EVMs should be mixed before counting,” says a release.

When elections were held using the ballot paper, the papers were mixed wherever it was considered necessary as provided under Rule 59A of Conduct of Election Rules, 1961.

After the introduction of EVMs, there was no scope for such mixing of votes. The Commission proposes such mixing of votes wherever necessary.

For this purpose, the EVM manufacturers — Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited — were asked to design a totaliser machine. An experts committee, consisting of P.V. Indiresan, D.T. Sahani and A.K. Aggarwal, provided necessary guidelines to them.

A demonstration of the totaliser was made at the Wednesday meeting.

The Commission has moved the Ministry of Law and Justice, Legislative Department for necessary amendments to the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 to provide for use of totalisers, according to the release.

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