The counting of votes polled across 543 constituencies for the Lok Sabha elections has begun on June 4 with postal ballots. Also known as mail-in ballots, they allow registered voters to exercise their franchise by mail rather than going to a polling booth. It provides a convenient alternative to individuals unable to vote in person due to circumstances such as old age, being away from their home district, having a disability, or fulfilling essential duties on election day. Media persons covering election activities were permitted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to cast their votes through postal ballots in this general elections.
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Ahead of the counting day, the Opposition-led INDIA bloc on Sunday had asked the poll body to issue directions to Returning Officers to ensure that postal ballots are counted and their results declared before the outcome of the EVMs is announced. In a letter to the ECI, the Opposition leaders highlighted that the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 states that the Returning Officer has to begin the process of counting postal ballots first. However, they claimed that this statutory practice was repealed and given a “go-by” by the poll body despite its 2019 guidelines to this effect.
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“This is the third multi-party delegation visiting the EC during this process.... We spent time with the EC on two to three major issues. Most important was counting the postal ballots and declaring the results first. This is a very clearly stated statutory rule, which specifically says that you should take up the postal ballots first,” Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi said during a media briefing on Sunday.
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2019 rule change
The concerns raised by the Opposition stem from a change in the ECI’s guidelines in 2019 for counting postal ballots. Till the 2019 general elections, EVM counting began 30 minutes after the conclusion of the counting of postal ballots. The ECI’s Handbook for Counting Agents in February 2019 stipulated, “Under no circumstances, should the results of all the rounds of the EVM counting be announced before finalising the postal ballot counting.”
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But this guideline was changed in 2019 as the number of postal ballots had shot up after the introduction of the Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS), and the mandatory counting of VVPAT slips of five randomly selected polling stations. Accordingly, the poll body directed all Chief Electoral Officers on May 18, 2019, that the EVM counting “can go on irrespective of the stage of postal ballot counting”. It also revised the rule for mandatory re-counting of postal ballots. Earlier, the rule mandated a recount of all postal ballots if the margin of victory in an election was less than the total number of postal ballots. However, now the postal ballots that are rejected as invalid during counting must be re-verified if the margin is less than the number of such rejected ballots.
The existing guidelines as per the 2023 Handbook for Counting Agents states, “After 30 minutes of commencement of postal ballot counting, the EVM counting can start and continue irrespective of the stage of postal ballot counting. Once the EVM counting is completed, the VVPAT slip counting can also start.”
Opposition’s concerns
In the letter to the ECI, the Opposition parties have pointed out that the number of postal ballots has seen a significant increase in this Lok Sabha election. They highlighted that the winning margin in the 2020 Bihar elections was 12,700 votes for the state, while the number of postal ballots was 52,000. “In fact, there was a huge outcry in Bihar as it was the first election (which was conducted after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic) where the postal ballots were counted at the end of the counting of EVM votes,” the INDIA bloc asserted. Accordingly, the poll body was asked to withdraw its May 2019 circular and issue directions under Rule 54A of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, which mandates the counting of postal ballots first.
According to this demand, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Monday said the count of postal ballots will start first across all counting centres and asserted that there was “no doubt about it.”
