New Delhi: Unlike in 2009 when it crashed within minutes, it was a smooth operation this time when the Election Commission (EC) website recorded 450 million hits on the morning of the vote count on Friday, making it the highest number of hits on any Indian website ever in a single day.

Unable to sustain the “excessive" hits last time, the EC’s website had crashed on the same day five years ago when votes were counted in the last Lok Sabha elections.

It took a team of information technology (IT) experts—five in every state commission and 12 in the Delhi Headquarters of the EC—a trustworthy human chain, and meticulous planning to bring out the EC’s online results in an impressive way, said a top EC official.

Starting 6am on 16 May, the entire team was active in each state and at the Nirvachan Sadan headquarters and in office till 6pm the next day, uploading the results, coordinating between 989 counting centres and 1,029,000 electronic voting machine control units across the country until the last results were uploaded.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.

Share Via