India, Sept. 2 -- On counting day, the control unit of each electronic voting machine (EVM) is opened one at a time and its numbers are entered against the polling station it came from. By the time the last machine has been read, a candidate knows not only whether they won but which of the 200-odd localities in an assembly constituency backed them and which did not. This granularity is a by-product of how the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, require EVM votes to be counted, and for 18 years the Election Commission of India (ECI) has been asking the government to give it the option to switch off this granularity.

The device that would do this is called a totaliser.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court asked the central government to explain wh...