The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Union government to submit its views on introducing a totaliser system to count votes recorded in a cluster of electronic voting machines, reported Live Law.At present, votes cast in elections are counted booth-wise. A totaliser would allow votes recorded in multiple machines to be counted together. This can make it difficult to determine how any particular booth voted.The petitioners in the case have argued that introducing a totaliser system can prevent a candidate or a political party from knowing how much support they received at a particular booth, thereby reducing the chances of post-poll violence, reported Live Law.They have sought that election results be declared at the parliamentary constituency level, instead of disclosing booth-wise figures separately.On Tuesday, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana asked the Union government to state if there were hurdles in introducing the system and whether it could have any adverse effects, reported Live Law.The bench also asked the Election Commission to submit its proposal on the matter to the government.During the hearing, Kant asked if there was a need for the totaliser system, saying that the booth-wise counting process allows discrepancies or tampering to be detected.One of the petitioners told the court that the system would ensure that the privacy of voters is maintained.The court asked the Union government and the Election Commission if a provision similar to Rule 59A of the 1961 Conduct of Elections Rules, which allows the use of a totaliser in ballot paper counting, could be introduced for electronic voting machines.The proposal had been examined earlier but did not receive support from the government-appointed expert committee, the counsel appearing for the Election Commission told the court. The counsel added that most political parties were against the proposal.“Fifty percent of national parties opposed, 68% state-level parties opposed,” The Indian Express quoted the counsel as saying.The petitioner said that the poll body had supported introducing a totaliser for years and had recently changed its stance, Bar and Bench reported.Referring to a January 2018 order by the Supreme Court, the petitioner said the Election Commission had stated that “a time has come for introduction of totaliser for counting of the votes”.Edited by Sneha.