EC adopts automation for post-election reporting

The Election Commission on Thursday said it has streamlined its system to generate various post-poll statistical reports by an upgraded mechanism which replaces the traditional time-consuming manual methods prone to delays.

By leveraging automation and data integration, the new system ensures faster reporting, it said.

The 'index card' is a non-statutory, post-election statistical reporting format developed as a suo moto initiative by the poll panel to promote accessibility of poll-related data at the constituency level.

Designed to disseminate data across multiple dimensions -- candidates, electors, votes polled, votes counted, party-wise and candidate-wise vote share, gender-based voting patterns, regional variations, and performance of political parties --the index card forms the foundation for generating about 35 statistical reports for Lok Sabha elections and 14 for assembly polls.

So far this information was manually filled at the constituency level using various statutory formats in physical index cards. The physical index cards were subsequently used for data entry into the online system to create statistical reports.

The manual, multi-layered process was time-consuming and frequently led to delays in data availability and dissemination.