State Election Department Is Ready For Vote Counting Today

GUWAHATI: The State Election Department, Assam, is ready for the crucial counting of votes for the Lok Sabha polls commencing from 8 am on Thursday when fates of 145 candidates contesting the three-phase general elections will be decided. Meanwhile, a three-layer security arrangement with personnel of CAPF (Central Armed Police Force) and Assam Police has been arranged in all the counting centres.

The EVMs and VVPATs are presently stored under tight security in 51 strong rooms across the State.

The counting process will be carried out under video surveillance. First the postal ballots will be taken up followed by the EVMs. Simultaneous counting will take place across 14 counting tables for each Legislative Assembly Constituency (LAC) segment.

As per a directive of the Supreme Court, after counting the votes polled in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) of a particular Legislative Assembly constituency (LAC), slips of five randomly selected Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPATs) of that LAC segment will be checked and tallied with the number of polled votes in the EVMs. After that, the slips will be put back in the respective VVPATs that will be sealed and finally locked along with the EVMs in the strong rooms.

However, it has come to the notice of the Election department that data of mock polls at some polling stations were not deleted prior to the commencement of actual polling there. The mock polls are done by the polling officials of a particular polling centre to check the EVMs. After it is done the data must be deleted from the EVMs. With respect to cases where the data are not deleted, it has been decided that only the VVPAT slips will be counted. The candidates have been informed of the polling stations where this process would be carried out.

Altogether 41 candidates were in the fray during the first phase of the LS polls on April 11; 50 in the second phase held on April 18; and 54 in the third phase that was conducted on April 23 in Assam.

The voters’ turnout for Lok Sabha polls has been at an all-time record in Assam of 81.52%.

Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Assam, MC Sahu talking to The Sentinel said, “All Returning Officers, Deputy Commissioners, Sub Divisional Officers (Civil) are ready for the counting process. The Central Counting Observers have already arrived.”

Altogether 51 Central Counting Observers have been deputed by the Election Commission (EC) to monitor the counting of votes across the State. During the crucial vote-counting stage on May 23, a micro-observer will be deputed at each counting table. He/she will fill up a form especially allotted for the counting process and submit the duly filled-up form to the Central Counting Observer.

The EC has chosen the micro-observers from backgrounds in central financial institutions like banks and other organizations. Besides the micro-observers, the other personnel at each counting table will include one counting supervisor, two counting assistants, a grade-IV person and poll agents of the different parties.

However, since the counting will be a time-consuming process this time due to counting of five VVPATs along with EVMs in each legislative assembly constituency segment, the final results are expected to be declared late on Thursday night.

Assam has 14 LS seats. During the 2014 general elections, the BJP secured seven seats while the Congress and the AIUDF got three seats each whereas Independent secured one seat.

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