Who’s afraid of an election audit?

The Haryana assembly election results have perplexed psephologists, political analysts, journalists, YouTubers and the public alike. Not only because they went against all predictions and perceptions but also because the fairness of the process is in question.

When the Congress voiced its apprehensions over the slow counting of votes in a letter to the Election Commission of India (ECI), it was told off as a graceless loser, a reply that seemed both partisan and politically coloured.

Misgivings about our electronic voting system (EVS) — of which the EVM (electronic voting machine), or the voting unit where we press the button, is just one component — have been expressed quite regularly over the past few years.

The people who have taken the trouble to scrutinise the system — researching the experience of other countries and tried to bring to our notice why these countries have rejected the EVS — have been brushed aside as conspiracy theorists. Even in the face of compelling evidence. And not even just by mainstream media, which is, in effect, a propaganda arm of the government. (Maybe a little less so after Lok Sabha 2024).

The Supreme Court did endeavour to add a layer of security by ordering the use of VVPAT (voter verifiable paper audit trail) machines, but it came to naught when the ECI refused to count the VVPAT slips and match them with the count on the EVMs.

Countries like the US, Germany and Netherlands have considered and then banned the EVS for ‘lack of transparency and verifiability by ordinary citizens’ to paraphrase the 3 March 2009 verdict of the German federal constitutional court Bundesverfassungsgericht.

If the ECI cares to redeem its reputation as a neutral referee of elections, the Haryana election results present a golden opportunity to open up the process to a thorough independent audit. Haryana being a small state with just 90 seats, it wouldn’t take much time, manpower or money to conduct a post-poll audit. The EC may even consider counting the slips from the 48 seats where the BJP won and the 37 seats bagged by the Congress.

If the counting is conducted quickly and transparently — in the presence of experts, representatives of political parties and civil society — it may put to rest past, present and future doubts.

While there may be no legal mandate to count the slips, there is certainly a moral mandate. With the election commissioners being appointed ‘lawfully’ by the ruling party, the ECI’s credibility is bound to remain suspect even when it tries to ensure a fair election. Post-election audits should, in fact, be made mandatory, as there are recurrent grievances about electoral rolls and deletion of voters’ names.

The role of returning officers, usually district magistrates, and polling personnel, largely government employees, is unclear. There is little or no transparency on how polling dates and the number of polling phases are determined. There are valid questions about the manufacture, storage, maintenance and transportation of the EVM machines. (The ruling party’s office bearers have been known to holdposts as directors in the public sector units manufacturing the machines.)

All this and more needs to be addressed by the ECI to restore its own credibility and the electorate’s trust in the system. Haryana can easily be a test case with no harm done, even if the counting takes a month. It is in the Election Commission’s own interest to take the initiative so that the bluff of manipulation is called once and for all.

While much of the post-election analysis of the results has focused on the BJP’s methodical micro-management, voter outreach strategies and other logistical manoeuvres, the somewhat opaque role played by the Election Commission during this crucial period deserves closer scrutiny.

On the morning of counting day (8 October), initial trends showed the Congress leading in 72 out of the 90 seats in Haryana. However, as the hours passed, this lead began to shrink, and soon it appeared as though the tide had completely turned. Mysteriously, the ECI website froze, leaving everyone in the dark with no updates for nearly two hours. By that point, only two rounds of counting had been completed. Even after the site resumed functioning, updates trickled in at a frustratingly slow pace.

These delays set off alarm bells. In his letter to the ECI, Congress general-secretary Jairam Ramesh wrote, ‘You can already see examples of this playing out on social media. Our concern is that such narratives can be exploited by malevolent actors to influence ongoing processes where counting is still taking place, particularly in most of the counting centres.’

If the hope was that the ECI would clear the air with a transparent response, that hope was soon dashed. The commission dismissed the Congress’s concerns as ‘ill-founded’. It went on to state, "The Commission unequivocally rejects your attempt to surreptitiously give credence to irresponsible, unfounded and uncorroborated malafide narratives."

This response flew in the face of the Commission’s mandate to maintain neutrality. The delay in updates on the website had been noticed not only by the political parties concerned but also by the media.

In the past, it was common for media reporters, particularly from news channels, to be stationed at counting centres. Back then, the commission’s website often lagged behind TV channels, which reflected election trends long before they appeared online. However, with the introduction of real-time updates, the ECI had become a more reliable source of information, prompting media outlets to reduce their presence at counting centres.

The delayed updates prompted several panellists on online discussions and TV channels to raise concerns that the delays and inconsistencies were feeding into a larger, potentially damaging narrative that could reshape public perception.

By the evening of 8 October, reports began to emerge suggesting that in every instance where a recount was conducted, the BJP candidates emerged victorious. Several losing candidates wondered how EVMs were still charged at 99 per cent after the whole day, implying that either a new EVM had been brought in or the existing EVM had been tampered with. Sound familiar?

After the Lok Sabha election, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) conducted a detailed analysis of the election data and uncovered significant discrepancies. In 362 parliamentary constituencies, a staggering 5,54,598 more votes were counted than had been cast. In 176 constituencies, 35,093 less votes were counted than the number of votes polled. Although the ADR did not explicitly claim that these discrepancies impacted the election results, they were certainly alarming.

It is important to recall that the ECI initially refused to provide data on the number of voters. The ADR had to take the matter to the Supreme Court, which ordered the commission to make the data publicly available on its website.

Jagdeep Chhokar, one of the founders of ADR, said, “The inordinate delay in releasing the final voter turnout data, the lack of dis-aggregated figures at the constituency and polling station levels, and [the question] whether the election results were declared based on fully reconciled data have raised public suspicion about the accuracy of the election results.”

The commission’s reluctance to address such serious questions deepens mistrust in the electoral process and compromises the integrity of its outcomes. It has consistently refused to allow open scrutiny of the EVMs and resisted the widespread installation of VVPATs alongside EVMs — a measure that was, once again, only implemented after the Supreme Court’s intervention.

Ideally, the ECI should invite scrutiny and provide comprehensive and unambiguous answers whenever questions arise. What we are witnessing today is the opposite. Dismissive responses and repeated failures to engage meaningfully with valid concerns amount to dereliction of duty to the electorate.

This is troubling and strikes at the heart of democracy. When citizens and political parties lose faith in the impartiality and transparency of the body responsible for over-seeing elections, the democratic process becomes vulnerable to cynicism. The Election Commission’s inability — or unwillingness — to address these concerns deepens this crisis of confidence. At a time when public trust in institutions is already fragile, the need for transparency and accountability from the ECI has never been more urgent.