A viral post has claimed that 5,04,313 extra votes were counted during the Maharashtra Assembly election results. It goes on to claim that while the Election Commission of India (ECI) reported 6,40,88,195 votes polled, 6,45,92,508 votes were counted.
The post also claims that in 8 constituencies, fewer votes were counted than polled, while in 280 others, more votes were counted than polled.
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The posts originated from a November 25, 2024, article by The Wire. The publication later clarified that the “Maharashtra Chief Electoral Office issued a note to clarify its factual position.” They also mentioned that the article did not account for the postal ballots cast.
The Maharashtra Assembly elections took place on November 20 across 288 constituencies, with a voter turnout of 66.05%.
What did the Maharashtra's Electoral Officer say?
In response to The Wire’s article, the Deputy Secretary and Joint Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra issued a clarification regarding the viral claims on their official X account.
“Total votes polled in all 288 Assembly constituencies in EVM in Maharashtra state is 6,40,88,195, which has been mischievously shown as total votes polled. The fact is that 5,38,225 valid postal ballots were not added in this figure. When we add the 5,38,225 valid postal ballots to the 6,40,88,195 votes polled in EVM; the total votes polled comes out to be 6,46,26,420. Total votes counted on the day of the counting including postal ballots is 6,45,92,508. Hence the total votes counted are not more than total votes polled,” ECI’s clarification read.
While there's still a difference between votes polled and counted, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), in the letter, clarified that in some assembly constituencies lesser number of votes were counted than votes polled due to one of the following reasons: mock poll data wasn’t cleared, there was an issue with the machine display, or a clerical or typing error caused a data mismatch. BOOM has sent an email to the CEO, Maharashtra, requesting a separate explanation for the difference between the number of votes polled and counted. The article will be updated as soon as a response is received.
BOOM verified this data with the report published by the CEO, Maharashtra and found that the viral claim is misrepresented because they failed to include postal ballots and only included EVM votes.
There are around 9.7 crore registered voters in Maharashtra of which 6,40,88,195 votes were cast via EVM. This excluded postal ballots, as clarified by the CEO, Maharashtra.
Additionally, the CEO’s clarification also mentions the claim stating that extra votes were counted in Ashti (4,538 votes) and Osmanabad (4,155 votes) constituencies are not true. The Chief Electoral Officer explained that these were valid postal votes, not extra votes.
In Ashti, 2,82,246 votes were cast through EVMs, and 5,013 postal ballots were received. After rejecting 475 invalid ones, 4,538 valid postal votes were counted. In Osmanabad, 2,38,840 EVM votes were cast, with 4,330 postal ballots received. After rejecting 175 invalid ones, 4,155 valid postal votes were counted.
The confusion arose because the postal votes were not included in the earlier data about EVM votes.
