NEW DELHI : In 38 constituencies, the total number of votes counted on the result day did not match the number of people who voted on February 8. A comparison of the figures used by the

to calculate the voters’ turnout with the final figures of the result day shows this discrepancy.

Although in 26 of these 38 constituencies, the difference was less than 100 votes, it ranged from a little over 100 to more than 1,000 votes in the remaining 12. Of the 1.5 crore registered voters in Delhi, about 92.5 lakh or 62.6% voters exercised their rights. The votes were counted on Tuesday.

The comparison of the turnout data shared by the

office on February 9 with the electronic voting machine (EVM) count in each candidate’s name and as

revealed that in 16 constituencies, the number of counted votes was more than the number of people who were reported to have voted. For instance, the number of voters in central Delhi’s Karol Bagh on the day of polling was 1,07,184, but the

votes were 1,08,339 — a difference of 1,155. Similarly in

and

, the votes counted were 464 and 396 more, respectively.

In the 22 others, the number of votes counted was less than the number of people who were reported as having voted. In southeast Delhi’s

, 1,17,463 voters were reported on the polling day, which was higher than 1,16,599 votes — a difference of 864 — counted on the result day. In Rohtas Nagar, 844 fewer votes were counted.

However, the comparison of these discrepancies with the victory margins shows that these could not have impacted the final results in any assembly constituency.

A Delhi election official said such discrepancies were not uncommon and sometimes the result of a particular EVM not being counted due to technical problems such as display issues or mock poll results not getting deleted. “The machine is kept aside and the remaining EVMs are counted. If the winning margin is big and the number of votes polled on that particular machine cannot impact the result, we do not count those votes,” said

, chief electoral officer of Delhi.

On a difference of just one or two votes in some constituencies, Singh said it could be due to typographical errors in the list of the polled votes compiled by the election office. The total number of people exercising their voting rights in a particular booth is recorded by the presiding officer in Form

in writing and manually fed into computers later, he pointed out. “The person entering the data into computer might have made some error,” Singh said.