Why has the Supreme Court sought Centre’s view on totalisers for vote counting in EVMs | Explained

The story so far: On Tuesday (September 1, 2026), a Supreme Court Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi, and Justice V.

Mohana asked the Central government to examine introducing totaliser machines for counting votes recorded in Electronic Voting Machines, to protect the secrecy of booth-wise voting patterns and prevent electors at individual booths from being identified and potentially victimised.

The case dates back to 2014, when two individuals, Yogesh Gupta and Imran Khan, had moved a public interest petition seeking a direction to the poll panel to mix up the votes cast in the various polling stations in a constituency to prevent candidates from intimidating voters in places which had rebuffed them.