Index Cards:
The Election Commission of India has streamlined, technology-driven system to generate Index Cards and various statistical reports after the conduct of the elections.
- Index Cards is a non-statutory, post-election Statistical Reporting Format.
- It is developed as a suo moto initiative by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to promote accessibility of election-related data at the constituency level for all stakeholders, including researchers, academia, policymakers, journalists, and the general public.
- It is designed to disseminate data across multiple dimensions—such as candidates, electors, votes polled, votes counted, party-wise and candidate-wise vote share, gender-based voting patterns, regional variations, and performance of political parties
- The Index Card forms the foundation for generating about 35 Statistical Reports for Lok Sabha elections and 14 for State Assembly elections.
- These reports cover variables like State/PC/AC-wise elector details, number of polling stations, state and constituency-wise voter turnout, participation of women electors, performance of national/state parties and Registered Unrecognized Political Parties (RUPPs).
- Earlier, this information was manually filled at the Constituency level using various statutory formats in Physical Index Cards.
- These physical Index Cards were subsequently used for data entry into the online system to facilitate the generation of statistical reports.
- This manual, multi-layered process was time-consuming and frequently led to delays in data availability and dissemination.
