Fact Check: Did EVM Counts Exceed Votes Polled in Varanasi in 2019? Revealing the Truth

India is getting ready for the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, but the spread of fake news on social media sites is a big problem for the political process. In answer, Fact Check made a show to fight this false information. Recently, this work included putting an end to false claims about the 2019 elections in Varanasi, where videos going popular said there were problems with the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). Several videos going popular say that in Varanasi, the number of votes counted by EVM was higher than the number of votes cast. But this claim was shown to be completely false. To protect the integrity of the democratic process, it is important to keep an eye out for false information during big polls like the Lok Sabha elections.

What is going viral?

People are talking about a movie on social media that has to do with the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. People in the video say that more votes were counted in EVMs than were cast in the 2019 Varanasi Lok Sabha polls. A Facebook user named Jangsher Khan Khan shared the video and said that even though 11 lakh votes were said to have been cast in the Varanasi polls, 12 lakh 87,000 votes were actually counted by the EVMs. Also, a user called Shubham Dharne made the same claims while sharing the video on the X platform.

Fact check

In answer to the video going viral that said EVMs didn’t work during the elections, we started an investigation. By using Google Open Search, we looked for news stories about the supposed event. But when we checked out the Election Commission’s official account, we saw that the reports going around were not true. The Election Commission categorically denied the claim that the EVMs in Varanasi were not working properly.

The Commission’s explanation says that a total of 18,56,791 people voted in the 2019 elections in Varanasi. Only 10,58,744 of these people used an electronic voting machine (EVM), and another 20,85 used mail-in ballots.

The ECI wrote about the first false claim in the video: “False Claim 1: false claim is made in a video regarding mismatch of electors & votes polled in #EVM in VaranasiPC during #GE2019.” “In reality, the claim is false and misleading. There were 18,56,791 voters in VaranasiPC as a whole. Votes cast and counted in EVMs: 10,58,744; mail-in votes: 20,85;”

False Claim 2: It is being said, based on an ECI letter, that there were 373 PCs where the number of voters and votes cast did not match up in #GE2019. The claim is false, inaccurate, and not based on any evidence. There is no contact like that from #ECI. There was no mistake.

The Election Commission also gave people a link to check the information about voters and votes cast in each Parliamentary district. For your convenience, this information is also included in a PDF file at the end of the piece.

What came out in the fact check?

There is false information on social media that the number of votes counted by Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in some Parliamentary areas during the 2019 General Elections was higher than the number of votes cast.