UPSC Prelims Practice Questions — SC seeks Centre’s response on use of ‘totalisers’ in EVM vote counting
Q1. A totaliser, as placed before the Supreme Court in the pending petitions, can accommodate at a time a maximum of about how many EVM Control Units?
Q2. If totaliser-based counting were adopted for EVMs, which one of the following would become the smallest unit for which candidate-wise vote figures are publicly known?
- A. Each polling station separately, exactly as at present under the counting rules
- B. Each Ballot Unit used in the voting compartment of a polling station
- C. The pooled result of the group of Control Units connected to one totaliser
- D. Each assembly segment falling within a parliamentary constituency
Q3. Use of a totaliser in the counting of ballot papers in specified circumstances is already contemplated by which one of the following rules of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961?
- A. Rule 49MA
- B. Rule 56D
- C. Rule 59A
- D. Rule 66A
Q4. Consider the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961. According to the Election Commission's submission before the Supreme Court, in how many of these does an express provision recognising or governing the use of a totaliser in EVM counting exist?
- A. None
- B. Only one
- C. Only two
- D. All three
Q5. Which of the following are correctly identified as having favoured the introduction of totaliser-based counting during the litigation on the subject?
1. The Law Commission of India, in its 255th Report
2. The Election Commission of India, as its position stood in 2017
3. The Union Government, in its affidavit filed before the Supreme Court in February 2017
4. The Supreme Court, which by a 2018 judgment ordered nationwide adoption of totalisers
Which of the above is/are correctly identified?
- The Law Commission of India, in its 255th Report
- The Election Commission of India, as its position stood in 2017
- The Union Government, in its affidavit filed before the Supreme Court in February 2017
- The Supreme Court, which by a 2018 judgment ordered nationwide adoption of totalisers
- A. 1 and 2
- B. 2 and 3
- C. 1, 2 and 4
- D. 1 and 4
Q6. The 255th Report of the Law Commission of India, relied upon in the totaliser proceedings, was a report on which one of the following subjects?
- A. Electoral Reforms
- B. Hate Speech and its regulation in India
- C. Simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies
- D. Review of the death penalty and its retention in India
Q7. When the Supreme Court in September 2026 sought the Centre's response on totaliser-based counting, for approximately how long had the demand been pending before the Court since the first petition on the subject?
- A. About 6 years
- B. About 9 years
- C. About 12 years
- D. About 15 years
Q8. On the material placed before the Supreme Court, the introduction of totaliser-based counting of EVM votes would have to be operationalised through which one of the following?
- A. The Election Commission acting alone under Article 324, whose plenary powers wholly override the statutory rules
- B. The Central Government, by amending the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 in consultation with the Election Commission
- C. The Supreme Court, whose orders in the pending petitions would by themselves amend the counting rules
- D. Every State Government separately, since the conduct of Assembly elections is entirely a State subject
Q9. The Election Commission's objection that totaliser-based aggregation could 'mask' EVM malfunctions is best understood to mean which one of the following?
- A. Pooling the votes of several Control Units would make an abnormality confined to a single machine harder to isolate
- B. The device would permanently erase the votes stored in every Control Unit connected to it after aggregation
- C. The device would make paper-slip verification legally impossible in all constituencies where it is deployed
- D. The device would prevent the Commission from ever publishing turnout figures for any polling station
Q10. Consider the following positions taken in the totaliser proceedings and the bodies to which they are attributed:
1. Absence of any enabling provision in the Representation of the People Act and the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 — Election Commission of India
2. Risk of fresh controversy while EVM integrity is still frequently questioned in public — Election Commission of India
3. Concealing booth-wise trends to protect voters from post-poll targeting and victimisation — the petitioner
4. Recommendation to create a totaliser-enabling provision for EVMs analogous to that for ballot papers — the Election Commission's 2026 submission
Which of the above is/are correctly matched?
- Absence of any enabling provision in the Representation of the People Act and the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 — Election Commission of India
- Risk of fresh controversy while EVM integrity is still frequently questioned in public — Election Commission of India
- Concealing booth-wise trends to protect voters from post-poll targeting and victimisation — the petitioner
- Recommendation to create a totaliser-enabling provision for EVMs analogous to that for ballot papers — the Election Commission's 2026 submission
- A. 1 and 2 only
- B. 1, 2 and 3
- C. 2, 3 and 4
- D. 1 and 4
Q11. The principal statutory guarantee of secrecy of voting, invoked in arguments for concealing booth-wise voting patterns, is contained in which one of the following sections of the Representation of the People Act, 1951?
- A. Section 123
- B. Section 126
- C. Section 128
- D. Section 169
Q12. In an ECI-EVM set, which one of the following is the component that records and stores the votes polled and remains with the Presiding Officer instead of being placed inside the voting compartment?
- A. The Ballot Unit, on which the elector presses the blue button against a candidate
- B. The Control Unit, to which a totaliser would be connected for aggregated counting
- C. The VVPAT printer, which produces a paper slip bearing the candidate's name and symbol
- D. The Symbol Loading Unit, used to load candidate names and symbols before the poll