India's Election Commission Ran the 2024 Lok Sabha Poll for 97.97 Crore Registered Electors at 10.5 Lakh Polling Stations Using Powers Written Into Article 324

Article 324 of the Constitution places the “superintendence, direction and control” of the electoral rolls and of every election to Parliament and the state legislatures, plus the presidential and vice-presidential polls, in a single body, the Election Commission. For the 18th Lok Sabha it ran a poll in seven phases from 19 April to 1 June 2024, counted the votes on 4 June, and ended with 64.64 crore votes cast, postal ballots included, by 97.97 crore registered electors, according to its own data release of 26 December 2024.

Each piece of that machinery has a different legal footing. Some of it is in the Constitution, some in Acts of Parliament, some in Supreme Court rulings and some in the Commission’s own instructions. This article takes them in the order a voter meets them.

Article 324 and the body it created

Article 394 brought Article 324 into force at once, on adoption of the Constitution on 26 November 1949, two months before most of the text. The Commission’s own report on the first general election says its office was set up on 25 January 1950 and that Sukumar Sen, a civil servant, took charge as Chief Election Commissioner on 21 March 1950, with no other member needed so far.

The article lets the President fix how many other commissioners there are, and the Commission began as a one-member body. On 1 October 1993 the President fixed the number of other Election Commissioners at two, under an ordinance that also set how the three would decide business. The Chief Election Commissioner, T. N. Seshan, challenged the change in the Supreme Court. On 14 July 1995 the Court upheld the law in its entirety. The Commission had three members at the 2024 election, according to the Press Information Bureau.

The first election the Commission ran needed 1,32,560 polling stations and enrolled 17,32,13,635 voters, excluding Jammu and Kashmir. Of those, 51.15 per cent voted for Parliament. The 1955 report credits the Constituent Assembly with adopting adult suffrage in full knowledge of the difficulty, and says the symbols on ballot boxes were chosen so that illiterate voters could recognise them.

How the commissioners are chosen and removed

Article 324(2) says appointments are made by the President “subject to the provisions of any law made in that behalf by Parliament”. Parliament had made no such law. On 2 March 2023 a five-judge Constitution Bench in Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India directed that the President act on the advice of a committee of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India until Parliament legislated.

Parliament did so with Act 49 of 2023, which received assent on 28 December 2023 and came into force on 2 January 2024. A Search Committee headed by the Law Minister prepares a panel of five names. A Selection Committee of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister recommends the appointment, and may consider names outside the panel. Appointees must hold or have held a post equal to Secretary to the Government of India. The term is six years or until age 65, whichever comes first, with no reappointment.

Removal is set by the Constitution itself. The Chief Election Commissioner can be removed only in the way and on the grounds a Supreme Court judge can, and the other commissioners only on the Chief Election Commissioner’s recommendation.

The change is contested. Petitioners argue that replacing the Chief Justice with a minister dilutes the Baranwal ruling. The Union told the Court that the Act was made as Article 324(2) contemplates. On 22 March 2024 the Court declined to stay the Act before the general election, called its observations tentative, and said selections should circulate full candidate details to every committee member. On 23 September 2026 a two-judge bench split on whether to refer the challenge to a larger bench. One judge called the Chief Justice’s seat a stopgap until Parliament legislated, the other saw a substantial question of law, and both sent the papers to the Chief Justice to consider a Constitution Bench, the Supreme Court Observer reports.

The electoral roll and the constituency map

Article 326 gives the vote to every citizen not less than 18 years old on a date fixed by law, unless disqualified for non-residence, unsoundness of mind, crime or corrupt practice. The age was 21 until the Sixty-first Amendment took effect on 28 March 1989. An Electoral Registration Officer, a statutory authority, keeps the roll for each constituency. The Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021 gave the roll four qualifying dates a year, and names can be added up to the last day for nominations. How an elector proves identity at the booth is covered in what India’s voter ID system actually is.

The numbers move with that updating. The rolls published with 1 January 2024 as the qualifying date held 968.8 million electors, the Commission’s March 2024 press note says, and its final report counts 97,97,51,847 at poll time.

How far the Commission may go in checking a roll reached the Supreme Court in 2026. On 24 June 2025 it ordered a Special Intensive Revision in Bihar. Petitioners said Article 324 could not be used where statute already applied and that the exercise excluded voters. On 27 May 2026 the Court upheld the Commission’s power under Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 read with Article 324. It held that Aadhaar proves identity but not citizenship, and that doubts about citizenship go to the competent authority.

The map is redrawn on a different clock. Article 81 asks that seats per state track population, and Article 82 calls for readjustment after each census, but a proviso keeps the allocation on 1971 figures and the constituency boundaries on 2001 figures until the first census after 2026 is published. The Delimitation Act, 2002 sets up a commission of a sitting or former Supreme Court judge, the Chief Election Commissioner or a nominated Election Commissioner, and the State Election Commissioner, with up to ten associate members per state, five MPs and five state legislators. Its orders have the force of law and cannot be questioned in any court, and Article 329 repeats the bar. Parliament has 543 elected constituencies. A bill to lift that freeze, the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, did not reach the special majority in the Lok Sabha on 17 April 2026. The amendment article covers that vote.

Inside the polling station

Electronic voting machines were first used in an assembly by-election in Kerala in 1982. The Supreme Court’s 2024 judgment records that a challenge for lack of legislative approval led Parliament to amend the Representation of the People Act through Act 1 of 1989, and that machines have been used in every general election since 2004.

The Court’s account of how a vote is cast comes from the Commission’s own submissions. A voter presses a blue button on the ballot unit, which has 16 keys, one reserved for NOTA, the “none of the above” option. A printer unit called the VVPAT, short for voter verifiable paper audit trail, shows a slip with the candidate’s serial number, name and symbol through a glass window for seven seconds, then cuts it and drops it into a sealed box. The control unit records the vote and beeps. Each vote takes about 15 seconds, so one machine cannot take more than four a minute, and each roll holds 1,500 slips. The units are standalone and cannot connect to a network. They are made by two public-sector firms, Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited.

Before polling, every machine is tested in front of party representatives, assigned to constituencies and polling stations by two rounds of computer randomisation, and loaded with candidate symbols 10 to 15 days ahead. The presiding officer casts 50 mock votes 90 minutes before opening. Paper seals carry party signatures. After polling the machines go to strong rooms that candidates may watch.

VVPATs came through the courts. In Subramanian Swamy v. Election Commission, the Court held in 2013 that a paper trail was indispensable, and the rules were amended on 14 August 2013. By 2024 the Commission put one with every machine.

The Court ruled again on 26 April 2024. The petitioners did not allege tampering. Citing the voter’s right to know the vote was counted, they asked for paper ballots, for voters to drop the slip in the box, or for every slip to be counted. The Court refused, found the Commission’s safeguards sufficient, and observed that every political party has objected to the machines at one time or another. It added two directions. The symbol-loading units are sealed and kept 45 days after results. On a written request within seven days from the candidates placed second or third, engineers verify the burnt memory of 5 per cent of machines in a constituency. The candidate pays, and is refunded if tampering is found.

The Model Code of Conduct and why it is not a law

The Commission’s manual traces the code to Kerala, which adopted one for its assembly election in February 1960, with the parties’ agreement. The Commission circulated it nationally for the 1962 elections. After a conference of parties on 12 September 1979 it issued a revised code in seven parts, one devoted to the party in power. The 1991 election, the manual says, was a watershed. A further part on manifestos was added in February 2014 after the Supreme Court’s S. Subramaniam Balaji judgment of 5 July 2013.

When the code starts was fought over for a decade. The Punjab and Haryana High Court sided with the Commission in 1997, and on 16 April 2001 the Commission and the Union Government agreed that it applies from the day the schedule is announced. For 2024 that was 16 March, and the Commission’s press note said it binds the Union Government as well.

The manual states plainly that the code “does not have legal sanctity”. Several rules in it overlap with the Representation of the People Act, 1951, for example the ban on public meetings in the 48 hours before polling in Section 126. The Commission reports that in the 1980s it asked for statutory backing, that bills to give it were not passed, and that it later withdrew the request, arguing that quick decisions during a campaign would stall in the courts. Its power rests on Article 324. In June 1993 it cancelled a Haryana by-election at Kalka over violations, a High Court stayed that order, and the Supreme Court stayed the High Court’s order.

How the 2024 election ran

The Commission announced the schedule on 16 March 2024. Polling was held on 19 April, 26 April, 7 May, 13 May, 20 May, 25 May and 1 June, and counting on 4 June, the All India Radio schedule shows. The press note counted 10,48,202 polling stations, none over 1,500 electors, a ceiling the note states, and set a spending limit of Rs 95 lakh per candidate in most states. The final report puts polling stations at 10,52,664.

Counting follows the Supreme Court’s description. Machine serial numbers and seals are checked against each polling station’s Form 17C, the presiding officer’s record of votes. Pressing TOTAL on the control unit must match it. Pressing RESULT shows each candidate’s count in front of the agents. Slips from five randomly chosen polling stations per assembly segment are then counted by hand and tallied.

The Press Information Bureau gives 65.79 per cent turnout at polling stations. Women, at 65.78 per cent, voted at a higher rate than men, at 65.55 per cent. NOTA took 63,71,839 votes, 0.99 per cent. Repolls were ordered at 40 polling stations, against 540 in 2019. Surat, in Gujarat, was the one uncontested constituency.

On 26 December 2024 the Commission published 42 statistical reports for the Lok Sabha election and 14 for each of the four assembly elections held with it, saying the aim was to enhance public trust.