Karnataka Survey Shows Strong Voter Confidence In EVMs Over Ballot Papers, Undercutting Congress ‘Vote Chori’ Claims

Bengaluru: In a major embarrassment to the ruling Congress, which levelled `Vote Chori' allegations against BJP, including in two constituencies of Karnataka, the people in State have reposed their faith in the EVMs to Ballot Paper voting system.

Kharge and Siddaramaiah’s Home Districts Show High Trust in EVMs

The survey was conducted by Karnataka Monitoring and Evaluation Authority, coming under the Department of Planning, Programme Monitoring and Statistics has revealed that 94.08 per cent of the voters in AICC President M Mallikarjun's Kharge's home district of Kalburgi and over 88.59 percent of Mysuru district represented by the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah have expressed confidence over accuracy of the EVMs.

This survey was part of the Central Government's `Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation' study, conducted to understand the electoral education, voters' participation and behavioural changes of the voters. The survey was conducted by the State government, which published its report in August 2025, but had been kept under wraps.

BJP was quick to react over the issue. Opposition Leader R Ashok, who took to his X-handle posted: ``For years, Rahul Gandhi has travelled the country telling one story: that India's democracy is `in danger', that EVMs are untrustworthy', that our institutions cannot be believed. But Karnataka has just told a very different story.''

Overall Confidence Levels Remain High Across Karnataka

``The statewide survey revealed that people trust elections, people trust EVMs and people trust India's democratic process. The findings are a slap on the face of the Congress,'' he said.

Reacting to BJP claims, IT&BT Minister Priyank Kharge denied that the survey was conducted by the Karnataka government. He claimed that it was an Election Commission Survey, carried out by the CEO of the Election Commission of Karnataka and only published by a government agency.

Kharge questioned the BJP's selective focus on the survey, asking why the party was not speaking about `Vote Chori' in Aland Assembly constituency.

For the study called `Lok Sabha Election - 2024, the Citizens Awareness, Perspective and Compliances', the survey team had selected 34 election districts from Bengaluru, Mysuru, Belagavi and Kalburgi districts, comprising 102 Assembly segments. They had spoken to over 5100 voters, with detailed interviews, along with 57 detailed meetings with the voters and 16 booth level study of micro incidents.

Very Few Voters Distrust EVMs, Neutral Views Higher in Bengaluru

On an average, 69.39 percent voters have reposed confidence on the EVMs, while 14.22 percent voters have strongly expressed their confidence with the EVMs.In Kalburgi, 83.24 percent voters expressed confidence with EVMs, while 11.24 percent voters strongly recommended for EVMs alone. In Mysuru, 70.67 percent of voters expressed confidence with EVMs, while 17.92 percent of voters strongly recommended EVMs.

Interestingly, Bengaluru has shown lowest among the confidence over EVMs. While 63.67 percent of voters expressed confidence over EVMs, 9.28 percent of voters have strongly recommended the EVMs, This takes the tally to 72.95 percent of voters, which is lowest among the acceptability.

The number of voters who do not trust EVMs is extremely low at 7.04 percent. However, those who have taken a neutral stand are at 7.65 percent. In Bengaluru, around 15.67 percent of voters have taken a neutral stand, which is the highest.

The other interesting revelation of the survey is that 14.61 percent of the voters do not have any information about the VV Pat. More interestingly, Bengaluru tops in this list also with 19/33 voters having no clue about the existence of VVPat. In Belagavi, 15.52 percent of voters are not aware of VVPat, while in Mysuru, 12.42 percent of voters don't have any idea about VVPat. Kalburgi stands lowest in this category, with only 8.10 percent of voters pleading innocence over VVPats.

(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ's editorial team and auto-generated from an agency feed.)