NEW DELHI: The Election Commission on Thursday formally launched ECINET — a single digital platform that onboards over 40 different election-related applications and portals — at the ongoing India International Conference on Democracy and Election Management (IICDEM) here, with chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar offering EC’s collaboration to other election management bodies (EMBs) for developing similar platforms for their respective countries.Addressing delegates from around 42 EMBs at the launch of ECINET — which subsumes IT innovations by EC over a protracted timeline of eight years, is as per the election laws and offered in 22 Indian languages and English — Kumar proposed that the EC team behind ECINET can work with the representatives of other EMBs to evolve a similar platform aligned with their laws and in their own language. “I would request the EMBs to examine this, and if you so request, EC will be more than willing to work with you on this score,” he said.During bilateral meetings between EC and heads of 32 EMBs — from countries like the US, UK, South Africa, Portugal, Peru, The Philippines and Sri Lanka, etc. — on Thursday, the latter evinced interest in the collaboration offer. India also offered to provide training support to the officials of foreign EMBs through the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIIDEM).ECINET was envisaged as a one-stop digital platform by Kumar, along with election commissioners S S Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, and its development was announced in May 2025. It onboards more separate EC apps meant to connect citizens, candidates, political parties, election officials, and extend key services like voter registration, electoral roll search, ‘track your application’, ‘know your candidate, ‘connect with election officials’, ‘book-a-call with the BLO’, e-EPIC download, near-realtime polling trends, grievance redressal, amongst others.”I formally launch ECINET for the world for better elections… and for a much more transparent and efficient sharing of information with billions of users at all points in time,” Kumar said at the event.The beta version of ECINET was successfully piloted during the 2025 Bihar assembly elections and the preceding special intensive revision (SIR), enabling EC to deliver enhanced citizen-centric electoral services and make available all election-related information at the click of a button. Suggestions were sought from citizens before giving final shape to the platform. Kumar on Thursday shared that nearly 53,000 suggestions were received and the app was constantly updated, sometimes by the hour. He even reached out to the EMBs of the world to examine the app and offer their suggestions to improve it further.Since the beta release, ECINET has processed over 10 crore registration forms, averaging 2.7 lakh forms per day. More than 11 lakh booth-level officers (BLOs) have registered on the platform. Over 150 crore documents have been digitised through this platform to date. Earlier, election commissioner Sandhu said that ECINET is a great tool to enhance trust in EMBs as it brings in greater transparency and provides for quick decision-making and information dissemination. Fellow commissioner Vivek Joshi said IICEDM 2026 will allow EMBs to draw from global practices on the adoption of technology and digital innovations.DG (Information Technology) in EC, Dr Seema Khanna, underlined that cybersecurity is one of the key pillars of ECINET. She said ECINET enhances transparency, efficiency, credibility, and public trust in elections.
