Bhubaneswar, Nov 09 (UNI) Counting of votes for the by-election to Balasore Sadar and Tirtol (SC) Assembly constituencies will start at 8 am tomorrow following all Covid-19 guidelines.



Odisha Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S K Lohani said all preparations have been made for the smooth counting of votes.



The CEO said this time since the number of booths in both the constituencies have been increased to avoid crowding in polling stations, the counting of votes may take some more time.



Dr Lohani said arrangements have been made to count the votes in the Collectorate office in Balasore and the counting in Tirtol would be done in SVM College, Jagatsinghpur.



He said the ballots would be counted in three halls in constituencies. While the Postal ballots would be counted first , the votes in EVMs would be counted in two halls in each of the constituencies.



Three Additional AROs have been deployed for Balasore and two Additional AROs have been appointed for Tirtol for the smooth conduct of the counting



As many as 110 polling officials have been deployed to count the votes.

Three layer security has been made and in total 110 counting personnel and 57 Micro observers were given training on counting.



All precautions relating to COVID-19 protocols such as social distancing, face masks, face shields, sanitisation of the halls, thermal screening of all persons will be ensured.



VVPAT Counting of five randomly selected polling stations will be held at the end of counting process.



Arrangement has been made to display the result after each round of counting.

Results will also be disseminated outside the counting centre as well as CEO’s office.



While each counting centre will be guarded by one platoon of CAPF in the innermost cordon, the middle cordon will be guarded by state armed police and the outermost cordon will be manned by state police officers.

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