FORM 17C - POLITY
News: No legal mandate to make
record of votes polled under Form 17C public: Election Commission to SC
What's in the news?
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Responding to a plea for uploading voter turnout
data, polling station-wise, on its website at the close of polling day, the
Election Commission told the Supreme Court that it cannot upload Form 17C,
which is the record of votes polled at a polling station, because there is no
legal mandate to give it to anyone other than candidates and their agents.
Form 17A and Form 17C:
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As per the Conduct
of Elections Rules, 1961, there are two forms that have data on the number
of electors and voters namely, Forms 17A and 17C.
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Form 17A is a register of voters, in which polling
officials record the details of every voter who comes into the booth and signs
the register.
○
Form 17C is the account of the votes
recorded.
Form 17C:
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The provision of Form 17C is a statutory requirement.
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It is issued to the polling agents of candidates at
the close of polling.
Form 17C contains:
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the identification
numbers of the EVMs used in the polling station.
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the total number of electors assigned to the
polling station.
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the total
number of voters as entered in the register for voters (Form 17A).
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the number of voters who decided not to record
their votes after signing the register.
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the number
of voters who were not allowed to vote.
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the number
of votes accepted.
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the name of the candidate and votes received by
them.
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the total number of test votes to be deducted, and
total number of votes recorded per EVM.
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Part-II of the same form carries the results of the
counting, which are entered on counting day.
Significance of Form
17C:
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The data in Form 17C are considered final, and is
the record that is to be used in a possible legal challenge.
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The data in Form 17C are also used by candidates to verify the results on counting day.
Other Key Takeaways:
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The number of electors and those who cast their
votes as recorded in Form 17C can be matched with the EVM count.
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On the day of counting, the counting supervisor
must certify in Part-II of the form that there is no discrepancy in the votes
counted and the votes recorded in Part-I on polling day.
○
This is countersigned by all candidates or their
representatives, and discrepancies, if any, can be challenged.
Go back to basics:
Voter Turnout
Application:
Launched by - the
Election Commission of India. This application has been used in the second phase of the elections.
Features:
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It provides live
information about the estimated voter turnout during the poll. The
application captures the real-time information from the data that is input by
the Returning Officers and calculates the estimated totals and displays in the
user-friendly android mobile application.
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The application is designed to show the Estimated
Voter Turnout for each State which can further be drilled down to Parliamentary
Constituency level and also to Assembly Constituency level.
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This new mechanism will simplify the data entry of
two-hourly voter turnout and help in timely dissemination of the information on
a real-time basis.
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To ensure near real-time update of the voter
turnout, another mobile app ‘Suvidha Admin’ has been given to all Assistant
Returning Officers / Returning Officers to make the entries of the voter
turnout data.