Paper ballots used in recent MLC elections because EVMs cannot handle ranked voting

Elections for 28 seats of Members of Legislative Council took place on October 23, using paper ballots instead of electronic voting machines. The Bharatiya Janata Party won 13 of these seats across four states. Its NDA partners, including Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde, Janata Dal United, and Janata Dal Secular, secured one seat each, bringing the total coalition count to 16 seats. Meanwhile, the Congress party won only a single seat in Maharashtra.

Reactions

The poor showing by Congress led to public criticism from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He mocked the party over its frequent past campaigns against electronic voting machines and its repeated calls to bring back paper ballots.

Context

Legislative council elections use a system of proportional representation with a single transferable vote, where voters rank candidates in order of preference rather than picking just one. Standard electronic voting machines are built only for simple first-past-the-post contests where voters select a single candidate, making them unable to record ranked choices.