Supreme Court To Hear Petition On May 17 Over Demand To Release Poll Turnout Data Within 48 Hours

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the petition filed by ADR demanding to upload polling station-wise voting data with complete figures on its website within 48 hours of the end of voting for each phase of Lok Sabha elections.

The Supreme Court will hear the petition on May 17. The Association for Democratic Reforms had filed a PIL in 2019 after which an interim application has been filed on which the Supreme Court will be hearing the petition.

The petition demands that after the end of the elections, all the polling stations should publish the scanned copy of Form 17 C Part-1 within 48 hours of polling which includes authentic data of votes cast.

The petition also states that the absolute number of separate constituency and polling station data has raised concerns and public doubt regarding the accuracy of data. The plea said that the data published in the press release of April 30, when compared with data published for April 19 and April 26, shows an increase of about 6 per cent.

The undue delay by the Election Commission in releasing the complete count of votes casted has created apprehensions in minds of voters. The Election Commission on April 30 released voter turnout data for the first two phases of 2024 Lok Sabha elections which has been published 11 days after the first phase of voting held on 19 April and 4 days after the second phase of voting held on 26 April.

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