European Citizens’ Initiative publishes detailed voter turnout data and tackles transparency issues | India news

The decision came after some parties raised questions and submitted a petition to the Supreme Court over the lack of quick data on eligible voters and voter turnout.

Election Commission of India file photo. (Image source: TV9 network)

New Delhi: In response to data transparency concerns, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has released details of the absolute number of votes polled in the first five phases of the ongoing general elections in each constituency. The European Citizens’ Initiative stressed that the process of collecting and storing cast votes is rigorous, transparent and participatory.

The decision came after some parties raised questions and submitted a petition to the Supreme Court over the lack of quick data on eligible voters and voter turnout.

The European Citizens’ Initiative clarified that the figures do not include postal votes. Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar suggested that the commission would later reveal how the petition tried to sow doubts about the electoral authority.

The European Citizens’ Initiative said it had decided to expand the format of its turnout data to take into account the absolute number of voters in each parliamentary constituency. The panel had previously released the absolute number of eligible voters only in the first two stages, at the end of the third stage of voting. “The Commission has therefore decided to extend the format of the turnout data to include the absolute number of voters in each parliamentary constituency,” the European Citizens’ Initiative said in a press release.

On the day of the vote, the ECI published a press release containing turnout estimates from the Voter Turnout App, which the commission described as “preliminary”, “non-statutory” and “derived from a secondary source” in response to a May 22 request by the Association for Democratic Reform and the Common Cause .

The European Citizens’ Initiative argued before the Supreme Court that public curiosity about voter turnout trends and results prompted the creation of the voter turnout app as a voluntary and non-statutory means of disclosing information. Turnout percentages for individual districts were published several days after each stage, while voter data was published inconsistently.