The Election Commission of India has decided to deploy Voter Turnout App in the ensuing bypoll to Munugode Assembly constituency to see real time voter turnout data on the election day.
The App developed by the ECI captures real time information gathered by the returning officers thereby calculating the estimated voter turnout data. The returning officers should accordingly enter the voter turnout report at different times. For instance, the RO can make entry between 9 a.m. and 9.30 a.m. for voter turnout as of 9 a.m.
The official concerned needs to fill data twice in two separate boxes for validation check. Once the data filled matches, he/she will be allowed to submit the data and submission would not be allowed if the data does not match. As the data is submitted, a pop-up mentioning the data entered for verifying the confirming that correctness of the data before it is entered into the database.
In case the RO missed entering any interval of approximate voter turnout, the Chief Electoral Officer should enable the edit button for the RO so that he/she can enter and publish the same.
The published data could not be changed at the RO level and for any change in a rare case, the CEO would enable the edit button so that the data could be edited and republished. “The data entered for any period should be higher than the previous and no lower data entry would be allowed,” the EC said.
The App will thereafter display the approximate voter turnout trend with disclaimers and watermark and would also mention the time stamp of the report. The time stamp would however be removed after 7 p.m. and data for Close of Poll could be entered from 7 p.m. to 12 midnight on the poll day. The system has a validation check wherein if the end of poll voter turnout entered with voter count figures is less than the approximate poll percentage entered for close of poll, the system would not allow finalisation and updation of data in the voter turnout App. “In that case, approval at the ECI level is required,” the EC said.
