Voting for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections 2024 has begun on April 19 and ahead of elections, many users on different social media platforms are seen claiming that 19 lakh Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) have been tampered with, with the intention of influencing the voting results before the elections.
Vishvas News in its investigation found this claim to be false. The Election Commission has termed the claim of missing EVMs as fake. The Indian New Congress Party (INCP) had filed a petition in the Supreme Court claiming that 19 lakh EVMs were “missing” and influencing the results of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, which the Supreme Court termed as completely “baseless”. The petition was rejected.
Claim:
Social media user ‘Nihal Singh Nigam‘ shared the viral claim on their post and wrote that 19 EVMs were stolen but so far there is no update on this.
Check the archive version of the post here.
Other users too are sharing similar claims on their profile.
Investigation:
The viral post claims that EVMs are missing, which is a sensitive claim. Based on the claim made in the viral post, during news search we found several reports in which this incident is mentioned. According to an Economic Times report on March 15, “The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a petition alleging that 19 lakh EVMs had gone “missing” from the Election Commission’s surveillance between 2016-19, so that the results of the Lok Sabha elections can be influenced.”
According to the report, “The court termed INCP’s apprehension as “completely baseless” and dismissed the petition.”
Other news reports too mentioned this decision of Supreme Court. Even in 2019, some reports of missing EVMs had been published. Frontline and TV9 Bharatvarsha had published these reports and ECI had dismissed those stating those to be baseless.
Issuing this clarification through its official X handle, Frontline’s editor had acknowledged the mistake and said that a clarification would be published, Whereas TV9 channel has deleted its telecast on the same.
Recently, after the decision of the Supreme Court, the Election Commission has once again issued a clarification on this fake claim.
The commission issued a clarification on April 5, 2024, calling the claim of 15 lakh EVMs “missing” as fake. The Commission has said that there is no such case of missing EVMs and the Supreme Court has also rejected the petition filed in this matter.
This question has also been answered in the FAQ section on the Election Commission website. We contacted the Election Commission official regarding the viral claim. He said that a clarification in this regard has been issued on the official social media handle and website of the Commission.
According to the Election Commission’s notification, the Lok Sabha elections 2024, to be held in a total of seven phases, will begin with the first phase of voting on April 19, under which voting will be held on a total of 102 seats.
Conclusion: Viral claim stating that 19 lakh EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) have gone ‘missing’ before voting in the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 is fake. Recently, the Supreme Court has also rejected the petition filed in this case, calling it ‘baseless’.
(This story was originally published by Vishvas News, and republished by Lighthouse Journalism as a part of the Shakti Collective)
