New Delhi, December 26: As many as 64.64 crore voters exercised their franchise in the Lok Sabha polls held earlier this year with women voters outnumbering men, according to statistical data released by the Election Commission on Thursday. The female voter turnout stood at 65.78 per cent as compared to 65.55 per cent for male electors, the EC said.

EC functionaries asserted that such granular data is not shared by any of the election management bodies in democracies across the world. The data on Lok Sabha polls, 2024 and four assembly elections -- Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh -- held alongside parliamentary polls comes against the backdrop of allegations of non-disclosure by the EC. "This suo motu initiative is to enhance the public trust that constitutes the underpinning of India's electoral system," the EC said. Why Is ECI Afraid of Transparency: Congress Hits Out at Election Commission for Tweaking Election Rule To Prevent Public Inspection of Electronic Records.

Referring to women participation in the polls, EC said the number of female contesting candidates was 800, compared to 726 in 2019. Maharashtra had the highest number of women contesting candidates with 111 in the fray, followed by 80 in Uttar Pradesh and 77 in Tamil Nadu. But at the same time, out of the total 543 Lok Sabha constituencies, there were 152 where there were no women candidates. A total of over 97.97 crore citizens had registered themselves as electors as compared to over 91.19 crore in 2019 -- an increase of 7.43 per cent. Out of these registered electors, 64.64 crore had cast votes in 2024, compared to 61.4 crore in 2019, the EC said.

According to the poll panel, any Indian citizen who registers in the electoral roll is defined as an elector. The elector who eventually votes is called voter. Total votes polled -- using EVM and postal ballot option -- stood at 64,64,20,869. Votes polled on EVMs alone stood at 64,21,39,275, with 32,93,61,948 male voters and 31,27,64,269 female voters. A little over 13,000 registered third gender voters exercised their franchise (27.09 per cent), according to the data. Election Commission Releases World’s Largest Electoral Dataset for 2024 Lok Sabha and 4 State Assembly Polls.

Nearly 43 lakh electors used the postal ballot option to vote. The Dhubri parliamentary constituency in Assam registered the highest turnout of 92.3 per cent while Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir registered the lowest turnout of 38.7 per cent, compared to 14.4 per cent in 2019. According to the dataset issued by the EC, as many as 11 parliamentary constituencies saw voting percentage of less than 50 per cent.

Repolls, the EC pointed out, were held in 40 polling stations or 0.0038 per cent of the total 10.52 lakh polling stations as compared to 540 in 2019. Referring to overseas Indian electors, EC said over 1,19 lakh such people were registered in the category, including 1.06 lakh men, 12,950 women and 13 third gender, compared to 99,844 registered overseas electors in 2019. Overseas Indian electors are those who are Indian citizens residing abroad due to various reasons and eligible to vote here. They have come to India to vote showing their original passport as a proof of identity.