Sharing video footage of polling stations will breach voters' privacy, cause harassment: EC officials

New Delhi: Defending the decision not to share CCTV footage of polling stations on voting days, Election Commission sources on Saturday claimed that its release could provide details of who cast their votes and who did not and lead to harassment of people at the hands of parties.

Citing a Supreme Court judgement, sources said that the voters who did not vote also have the right to secrecy under law and it needed to be protected.

Recently, the EC had reduced the retention period of footage to 45 days after the declaration of results. Earlier, the EC retained footage related to pre-nomination period for three months and for nomination stage, campaign period, polling and counting, it ranged between six months to one year.

Sources said the EC retains the footage as purely an internal management tool and not a mandatory requirement for 45 days. Since no election can be challenged after 45 days of declaration of results, they claimed, retaining the footage beyond that period makes it susceptible to misuse by non-contestants for spreading misinformation and malicious narratives.

In case an election petition is filed, they said, the footage is not destroyed and made available to the court when asked for.

Sharing of video footage, which is a violation of the right of secrecy of electors who have decided not to vote, could lead to profiling of the voters who voted as well as those who did not vote, which may become the basis for discrimination, denial of services, intimidation or inducement, sources said.

If a particular party gets a lesser number of votes in a particular booth, it can easily identify, through the footage, who has voted and who has not and may harass or intimidate the voters. Maintaining privacy and secrecy of the voter is non-negotiable and the EC cannot compromise on this tenet, which is laid down in the law as well upheld by the apex court, sources claimed.

The Supreme Court held that right to vote includes right not to vote and right of secrecy is accorded to even those people who have decided not to vote, sources said. Giving the right to a voter to not vote for any candidate while protecting his right of secrecy is extremely important in a democracy, sources quoted from a Supreme Court judgement.

Sources said providing footage is akin to providing Form 17A, which contains information pertaining to sequence in which electors enter a polling station, serial number of the elector in the electoral roll, details of the Identification document produced by the electors and their thumb impression or signature.

Form 17A is mandated to be provided only under order of competent court and therefore, video footage can also be provided only under the orders of a competent court as whatever is not intended under law cannot be allowed to be achieved by obtaining the video footage.

Referring to demands for making available footage of the webcasting of the polling stations during the poll day, they said it may sound genuine and in the interest of voters but it achieves exactly the opposite objective.

What is "veiled as a very logical demand" is actually entirely contrary to the privacy and security concerns of the voters and legal position laid down in the Representation of the People Act, 1950/1951 and the directions of the Supreme Court, they said.