Amidst concerns over vote mismatch, ECI says its data tentative

Amidst concerns over vote count mismatch in the Lok Sabha elections, Election Commission (EC) on Saturday said that the voter turnout data is tentative and not final.

"The provisional voter turnout data reported on the ECI website is only the tentative number of voters and not the final nos. Therefore it is an incorrect inference to find ghost voters when there are none," the EC in a press note said.

The commission said that the reconciliation of voters' data for all parliamentary constituencies across India have been completed and will be made available.

Citing a new report, the Congress on Friday sought the commission's explanation over alleged vote count mismatch in over 370 constituencies.

"Elections are the one chance the people have to hold governments accountable, people should have confidence in the system. There has been a consistent mismatch between the number of votes cast and the EVM vote count, the EC must explain these discrepancies," a tweet from Congress' official handle reads.

Some recent media also questioned the mismatch in EVM vote count.

The EC had used voter-verified paper audit trails to crosscheck the votes polled via electronic voting machines in this elections.

Two categories of votes are counted to get the final result. In the first category, fall votes polled in EVMs by the general electorate, while the second category is of postal ballots returned from over 18 lakh service men.

During the vote counting, provisional voter turnout data was displayed on the EC website and Voter Helpline Mobile App as uploaded by the returning officers (RO). The ROs give approximate percentage turnout figures provided by sector magistrates who in-turn get it periodically over phone/in person from about 10 presiding officers.