Fact Check: Bihar Elections - Votes polled exceed number of voters? No, here’s the data
A social media claim alleges that Bihar recorded more votes than registered voters during the 2025 Assembly election.
By - M Ramesh Naik
Claim:The number of votes polled was higher than the number of eligible voters in Bihar during the 2025 Assembly elections.
Fact:The claim is false. Bihar had about 7.45 crore registered electors after SIR, and only around 5.02 crore votes were polled.
Hyderabad: The NDA registered a decisive victory in Bihar, winning 202 of the 243 seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party became the single-largest party with 89 seats, followed by the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U), which secured 85 seats.
A day after the Congress questioned alleged discrepancies in Bihar’s electoral data, several social-media posts began circulating claiming that the state had recorded more votes than voters during the 2025 Assembly elections.
Amid this, one Facebook user wrote, “According to the Election Commission:
- Total voters in Bihar: 7 crore 42 lakh
- Total votes polled: 7 crore 45 lakh 26 thousand 828 (more than total voters!)
How did polling increase by 3 lakh? Where did these votes come from?
Voting percentage was 66.91%
- Hence, polled Votes should be: 4 crore 96 lakh 22 thousand 220
- Calculation: 7,45,26,828 - 4,96,22,220 = 2,49,04,638
Where did these extra 2 crore 49 lakh+ votes come from in Bihar? All data is from the Election Commission.”
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. Bihar has about 7.45 crore registered electors, and only around 5.02 crore votes were polled.
Ahead of the elections, the Election Commission conducted a Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls. The revised list published on September 30 recorded approximately 7.42 crore electors.
Through keyword search, we found a press conference on October 5, where Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumarclarified that citizens whose names were missing from the rolls could continue applying for inclusion until October 10, with another window extending to October 20.
As new voters were added during this period, the Election Commission updated its figures again, and by October 6, the number of electors had risen to 7,43,55,976.
Following the completion of polling, the commission released another press note on November 11 stating that Bihar had 7,45,26,858 registered voters.
This number represented the final and official count of eligible voters and did not reflect the votes actually cast.
On November 13, the Election Commission released the updated turnout figures, confirming that the state recorded a voter turnout of 67.13 per cent. This means that out of the 7.45 crore registered voters, only around five crore people cast their votes.
The constituency-wise vote totals published on the Election Commission’s website confirm that the total number of votes polled, including postal ballots, was 5.0185 crore. This figure makes it clear that the number of votes cast did not exceed the number of eligible voters in the state.
The viral claim that Bihar recorded more votes than voters in the 2025 Assembly elections is therefore false.
