Delhi poll results won’t be out before midnight

NEW DELHI: The official declaration of the winners on the seven Lok Sabha seats in the capital is unlikely to happen before the midnight this year.
The delay is unavoidable as the election officials will have to verify the EVM count with voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) from 50 polling stations in each constituency.
According to Delhi’s chief electoral officer, Ranbir Singh, the officials will match the result of five polling stations in each assembly segment with VVPAT after the counting of votes is over.
“The paper trail of the votes polled in favour of each candidate will be first kept in separate bundles and then matched with the EVM results. It will take about one hour to tabulate the VVPAT result of each polling station and the entire exercise will take five hours for each parliamentary constituency,” Singh told TOI on Monday.
Each Lok Sabha constituency has 10 assembly segments. Out of the 200 polling stations in every segment, five polling stations will be selected randomly. The tabulation of paper trails of all segments will be carried out simultaneously.
In all, 350 VVPATs will be counted. In case the results of paper trails and the EVM voting don’t match, the VVPAT result will be accepted. “The final results will be declared after completing the entire exercise, which will take 10-12 hours but the trends will be known within a few hours of beginning the counting exercise,” he added.
Singh, along with police commissioner Amulya Patnaik, briefed Delhi chief secretary Vijay Dev about the process of counting and security arrangements made at each of the seven counting centres. Each centre will be covered by multi-layered security arrangements as per the guidelines of Election Commission of India (ECI).
This is the first time that VVPAT machines have been used in all constituencies in the country. Following the directions of the Supreme Court, ECI has made it mandatory to verify the EVM results with paper trails from five randomly selected polling stations.
Singh said paper chits with the number of the polling stations written on them will be put in a container and shuffled before the returning officer, in presence of all candidates or their agents, picks the slips. Specially covered enclosures have been set up at each counting centre to ensure security and confidentiality of the counting of paper trails.
In each counting hall, a maximum of 14 tables can be placed and the result of each round will be compiled and uploaded on the Suvidha app, an official said.
The VVPATs of four more polling stations — three in West Delhi and one in Chandni Chowk — will also have to be checked as the presiding officers had forgotten to delete the mock poll before the actual voting started on May 12.