Votes in the Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) would be counted for the first time in Odisha, informed State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Surendra Kumar here on Monday.
He stated that the VVPAT vote counting would take a bit longer time.
The decision has been made on a directive from the Supreme Court and the Election Commission of India (ECI) to follow transparency in vote counting after the general elections.
“As per the directive by the Supreme Court, the ECI has ordered to select five booths on random basis and the VVPATs will be counted there on sequential basis, not concurrently or in parallel manner. That means the counting of a VVPAT will be conducted after ending the counting of another machine and putting it in the strong room. As it will be done sequentially, the counting will take a bit longer time,” the CEO said.
“If the ECI further directs for VVPAT counting at other booths, we will follow the same rule by counting the machines sequentially,” Kumar said, adding that there is no question for parallel counting as the window would be long.
In view of the prevailing heat wave conditions, all the vote counting centres will have air conditioners (ACs).
On the day, Returning Officers (ROs) and Assistant Returning Officers (AROs) of 14 districts were provided training on vote counting.
They were taught all processes as to how to open EVMs and VVPATs and count votes.
Kumar, ECI representative Sachi Ram Chandra Yadav and other officers were present.