New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday announced a fresh directive that counting of postal ballots must be completed before the penultimate round of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) counting begins, adding yet another reform to what has become the most ambitious overhaul of the electoral process in recent memory.
With this decision and the recent introduction of an e-verification facility for the online submission of forms, including Form 7 for voter deletions, the poll body has now unveiled thirty-one distinct initiatives over the past six months.
Official sources told this newspaper that the latest move on postal ballots was designed to eliminate ambiguity in the sequencing of results, especially as the number of such ballots has risen sharply following the introduction of home voting for persons with disabilities and citizens above 85 years of age.
Until now, EVM counting could theoretically finish before postal ballot scrutiny concluded, creating potential confusion in close contests. The new protocol locks the process so that postal ballots are counted fully before the second-last round of EVMs is taken up, with Returning Officers directed to ensure adequate staff and tables to prevent delays.
The wider slate of reforms introduced since April 2025 touches almost every aspect of the electoral system, ranging from the convenience of voters at polling stations to the internal discipline of the Commission’s own headquarters, officials explained.
It is pertinent to mention that the election body got a new chief in Gyanesh Kumar on 19 February.
For voters, visible changes include the introduction of mobile deposit facilities at polling booths, a cap of no more than 1,200 electors per station to reduce crowding, redesigned voter information slips that carry serial and part numbers more clearly, permission for candidate booths just beyond the 100-metre zone to facilitate electors, and the use of colour photographs of candidates on EVMs for easier identification.
For institutional clean-up, the Commission has delisted 808 inactive or non-compliant political parties, mapped the roles of 28 stakeholders across its constitutional and legal framework, introduced standardised photo identity cards for Booth Level Officers, framed technical and administrative SOPs to verify microcontrollers of EVMs after results, convened a national conference with its legal counsels and Chief Electoral Officers, and strengthened global partnerships through bilateral meetings with election management bodies abroad.
To deepen engagement with the political class, the Commission has so far conducted 4,719 all-party meetings at various levels across the country and held consultations with 25 recognised national and state parties at the central level.
On the technology front, it has launched ECINET, a one-stop digital platform subsuming more than forty applications and websites, mandated one hundred per cent webcasting at all polling stations, required Presiding Officers to upload turnout figures every two hours through ECINET on polling day, streamlined the preparation of index cards and statistical reports for faster data circulation, and made it mandatory to count VVPAT slips in every case of mismatch with Form 17C.
The integrity of the electoral roll has been a particular focus, with a special intensive revision undertaken in Bihar, a special summary revision carried out before by-elections in four states for the first time in nearly two decades, the linking of death registration data to ensure prompt removal of deceased voters, the elimination of duplicate EPIC numbers, and the introduction of a new SOP that guarantees the delivery of voter ID cards within 15 days of an update, complete with SMS notifications at each stage.
The Commission has also emphasised capacity building: more than 7,000 Booth Level Officers and supervisors have been trained at its Delhi institute, training has for the first time been extended to Booth Level Agents appointed by political parties from Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, media and communication officers of 36 state CEO offices have received instruction, police officers in Bihar have been trained for poll preparedness, and workflow at the Commission’s headquarters has been digitised to enforce discipline and better use of resources.
Alongside this, remuneration for BLOs has been doubled and allowances for supervisors, polling staff, CAPF personnel, monitoring teams and micro-observers have been increased, recognising the human capital on which Indian elections rest.
In addition to these twenty-nine steps and the new postal ballot rule, the Commission has introduced an e-verification system to prevent the misuse of online forms such as Form 7, which is used to request deletions from the electoral roll.
Recently, Leader of Opposition and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had alleged that more than 6,000 names were wrongly deleted in Karnataka’s Aland Assembly constituency. The Commission rejected the charge as baseless, noting that 6,018 deletion requests had been filed online, of which only 24 were genuine while the rest were rejected, and emphasised that no vote can be deleted online without the concerned elector being heard.
Under the new system, only the genuine applicant will receive the one-time password required to validate an application, blocking attempts to submit mass or fraudulent objections using another person’s EPIC details.
The Election Commission insists these thirty-one measures, taken together, are aimed at improving transparency, efficiency and public trust in the electoral process amidst  heightened political tension and attacks from Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders who have alleged that the ECI was working under government influence.
