Form 17 data IS being tabulated by every returning officer (543 Collectors/DMs)

[Gopal Krishna]

"The Form 17 data IS being tabulated by every returning officer (543 Collectors/DMs) with the support of 1000’s of staff (who the court can summon to testify if needed). As ECI ALREADY HAS THE DATA - WHY NOT PUBLISH IT? They used to earlier.. Who benefits from hiding it now," asks Dr. P Thiaga Rajan, Tamil Nadu Minister, Information Technology & Digital Services. 

He adds, "I ensured this data was collated by booth from our agents - for all constituencies (as IT Wing head) in 2019 (MP) & 2021 (MLA) elections &  I know our @arivalayam (DMK) HQ also repeated it now. But not all candidates/parties can do so. That's why ECI must do it."

Addressing the Bench of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India hearing the ADR case, he writes:

1) Most candidates (especially smaller or non-tech-savvy parties and independents) will simply not have the capacity to collect, collate, tabulate, and re-sort (by counting table) the Form 17 Data - EVM Serial #, Total Votes Polled – from 1,500 to 2,000 booths per MP Constituency, ahead of the vote counting process.

2) Therefore, the entire counting process is IMMENSELY more robust and transparent if the Form 17 Data with these details is published as soon as possible after polling, and well ahead of the counting, so that every agent of every candidate in the counting centers knows exactly how many votes to expect be counted on each EVM, after the serial number of the machine has been matched with the booth. This will be especially helpful for Candidates from smaller parties, and independent candidates

3) Publishing this data (by booth) was the norm of the ECI till 2019 or so...when they mysteriously stopped publishing this data, AND TOOK ALL OLD FORM 17 DATA off their website. Within the ambit of a constitutional democracy, what possible motivation or justification can there be for this action ?

4) How is the electoral process, and our democracy, even .0001% worse off if this data - WHICH THE ECI ALREADY HAS IN DIRECTLY PUBLISHABLE FORM, AS IT IS BEING SUBMITTED BY EACH RETURNING OFFICER AFTER THE POLL - is published and made available to all ?? On the contrary, it will be immensely better off.

5) What possible reason can the ECI have for not publishing ~543 sets of scanned pages of data - WHICH WAS ALREADY COLLATED AND SENT TO THEM FROM EVERY CONSTITUENCY - on their website now. AS THEY USED TO!!!

6) Anyone with basic interest in Democracy, and integrity, must insist on the data being published well before counting. Anyone arguing against publishing it, patently has MALINTENT. There can be NO OTHER JUSTIFICATION.

Please do your Constitutional Duty to preserve some vestiges of accountability, robustness, and transparency in the Election process