As the date for counting of votes of the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections, May 23, is approaching, the Chief Electoral Officer’s office is gearing up to count the votes registered in the VVPAT machines at select polling stations in the State. In line with the directive of the Election Commission, the election authorities have decided to count VVPAT slips of five polling stations in each of the Assembly segment under the respective Lok Sabha seat. As a result, counting of VVPAT slips would be taken up at 35 polling stations in each Lok Sabha constituency which has seven Assembly constituencies under its purview. The election authority, accordingly, is examining a proposal to conduct training in advance for the officials drafted for counting duties, if need be, to ensure that there are no slip ups in the last moment. Officials said the counting of the votes cast in the EVMs is expected to be completed by afternoon, except for Nizamabad constituency where 183 candidates are in the fray.
The announcement of the results is, however, likely to take some time as the process of completing counting of VVPAT slips has to be completed. “Results will be declared only after the counting of VVPAT slips is completed and tallied with the votes polled in the EVMs,” a senior official told The Hindu.
Officials said though exact guidelines relating to the counting of VVPAT slips are yet to be received from the EC, it was decided in principle to select polling stations under each of the seven Assembly segments under a particular Lok Sabha constituency through draw of lots. This would be followed by segregating the slips related to contesting candidates and counting would commence thereafter.
“Counting of VVPAT slips will not have any major impact in the constituencies where the margin of difference in votes between winners and losers is high. But, adequate precautions will be taken in cases where the gap in votes secured by the winner and the runner up is low,” the official said.