Why Supreme Court sought Centre's opinion on Totalizers for counting votes in EVMs

The votes are currently being tallied cabin by cabin. File | Photo credit: B. Jothi Ramalingam

Story so far: On Tuesday (September 1, 2026), Supreme Court Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohan asked the central government to examine the introduction of counters to count votes recorded in electronic voting machines to protect the secrecy of voting patterns in booths and prevent potential voters from being identified by individual victims. The case dates back to 2014, when two individuals, Yogesh Gupta and Imran Khan, filed a public interest petition seeking to direct the panel to shuffle votes cast in different polling stations in the constituency so that candidates could not intimidate voters in the polling stations that rejected them.

What is a tote?

The Totaliser is a proposal to prevent candidates from determining the way they vote in individual polling stations. The totalizer makes it possible to add up the votes cast in approximately 14 polling stations. The votes are currently being tallied cabin by cabin. It was developed by Bharat Electronics Limited, Bengaluru, and Electronics Corporation of India Limited, Hyderabad. A totalizer is an interface which is connected to the main controller of a group of 14 EVMs and the consolidated number of votes cast for each candidate in that group of EVMs can be obtained by pressing the result button on the counter without revealing the votes polled by the candidate in the area.

Why was the totalizator proposal brought to the Supreme Court

Two individuals, Yogesh Gupta and Imran Khan, filed a public interest petition in 2014 seeking to direct the polling panel to tamper with the votes cast in the polling booths in the constituency. They argued that it was necessary to prevent candidates from intimidating voters in areas that rejected them.

As part of their arguments, the duo cited the alleged intimidation of late former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar in the Baramati constituency during the last general elections. Pawar allegedly threatened voters that his party, the Nationalist Congress Party, would be able to detect voting patterns from electronic voting machine data and cut off their water supplies if they did.

What was the attitude of the central government

The center’s stance has historically been oppositional to the totalizers. In 2018, Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh told a bench headed by then CJI Dipak Misra that the installation of a totalizer could cause data breaches even before the counting of votes began – a request the government had rejected a year earlier. Recently, the Center again raised concerns that the totalizer system could lead to leakage of data from EVMs before counting of votes, prompting the Court to give the Election Commission two weeks to respond to these specific concerns.

In 2017, the Center told the Supreme Court that the identification of booth voting patterns did not lead to voter intimidation and there was no need to stop the practice. It argued that knowledge of cabin vote shares allowed candidates to work harder in areas where support for them was low, thereby achieving better results for all concerned.

A Law Ministry affidavit told the court that a group of ministers headed by then Home Minister Rajnath Singh had decided last September that “intimidation/victimization of detained voters cannot occur on a larger scale in this era of media activism”.

What was the position of the electoral commission

The opinion of the Electoral Commission consistently supports the introduction of totalizers. It first proposed the measure to the UPA government way back in 2008. In a 2018 filing in the Supreme Court, the election body said “the time has come to introduce a totalizer for counting votes”. This support continued in the current round of hearings. The EC informed the Court that it had previously recommended a totalization system to the Union Government, and a senior advocate representing the EC expressed support for the aim of protecting voter anonymity – while also pointing out some practical and legal issues in its actual implementation, including concerns about booth authentication and VVPAT.

What did the Supreme Court say now?

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (September 1, 2026) asked the central government to state its stand on the introduction of a ‘summary’ system for counting votes recorded through EVMs. Specifically, the court sought to ascertain whether there were any obstacles to the introduction of such a mechanism and whether it would have any negative impact. The Election Commission of India has also been asked to submit its proposal to the Union.

Published – 02 Sep 2026 11:42 IST