A Karnataka govt study that found the majority of voters across the 102 assembly constituencies in the state do have faith in the electoral process and consider EVMs reliable, has reportedly been removed from the state government website.
As per a report in Deccan Herald, the website of the Karnataka Monitoring and Evaluation Authority (KMEA) no longer has the August 2025 report, which was made public just a few days ago.
Karnataka government’s own study revealed significant voter confidence in the EVMs and India’s electoral process, a sharp contradiction to the ‘Vote Chori’ campaign by the Congress party. The Congress government of Karnataka faced rampant mockery and outrage from all sections after the study results were highlighted in the media, showing that more than 80% of Karnataka voters have trust in the EVMs.
The KMEA, which comes under the Karnataka governement’s Department of Planning, Program Monitoring and Statistics had conducted the study, as per reports.
The study involved 5100 voters across 102 assembly seats and all 4 administrative divisions of the the Karnataka state, Bengaluru, Belagavi, Mysury and Kalaburagi.
It was commissioned by the Chief Electoral Officer of Karnataka, with a Mysuru-based nonprofit named GRAAM (Grassroots Research and Advocacy Movement).
The KMEA sources have reportedly stated that they have decided to subject the report to “further evaluation and review”, Deccan Herald stated.
Congress leaders, after facing widespread criticism over the failure of their own ‘vote chori’ campaign, had tried to claim that the study was done only to sing praises of the Election Commission and that the state government had no role in it.
CM Siddaramaiah had posted on X that the survey was being selectively used to highlight as a misleading narrative, and that the survey was only an end-line administrative evaluation of voter awareness under SVEEP and was not a political opinion poll. He did not, however, deny that the survey was done with the state government’s approval and awareness. He had claimed that Rahul Gandhi’s ‘vote chori’ allegations are still valid and legitimate.
