The Election Commission (EC) on Friday explained the reasons that led to a delay which include objection related to voting machines, mandatory tallying of electronic voting machine (EVM) count with voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips, issuance of certificate after every round of counting and denying public announce system.
The increase in the postal ballot votes, slim margins in Madhya Pradesh on many seats and a cautious approach adopted to avoid the embarrassment further, also the reasons for delay in announcement of polls results this year.
MP Assembly election results were declared 24 hours after counting began while Rajasthan results declared 19 hours after counting began.
Unlike the quick counting of votes for the Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Mizoram, counting in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan went on at a snail’s pace, keeping people in general and the political parties in particular on tenterhooks throughout the day on December 11.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) VL Kantharao said “The delay is because every candidate has to be provided a certificate after every round of counting.” “Right from the first round of EVM counting at 8.30am, the candidates were very particular about checking and examining every seal, tag and serial number of the EVMs and their cases being brought to the counting tables. In several cases, they raised trivial objections on the seals, serial number/tag number, signatures of polling staff on the tags, which required the intervention, explaining and convincing by the Returning Officer, District Election Officer and Observer before these EVMs were taken up for counting. Even though no EVM was kept aside or found tampered amongst the 66,000 EVMs taken up for counting, the process of objections slowed down the rounds,” the CEO said.
The MP CEO further explained that that when a result is noted from an EVM machine at a counting table, it is written down on part two of Form 17C and the counting agents verify and sign on this sheets which is then photocopied and given to them.
“Similarly, when the tabulation of 14 such results from the 14 tables in the counting hall is made into a broad sheet, it is again verified and photocopies are distributed to the candidates. Strict adherence to this procedure has slowed down the counting process,” the ECO said.
“The insistence of the candidates to not bring the next round of EVMs on to the counting tables before tabulated, round-wise figures are written on the blackboard/white board in the counting hall and announced in the public announce system has denied five-minute time saving that have could done in between rounds. With an average 22 rounds of counting per Assembly constituency, this has led to two hours of delay”.
According to Kantharao, in about 250 cases out of 66000 EVMs taken up to counting, the presiding officers had not followed the Close-Result-Clear (CRC) after the mock poll done in the morning of the poll day.
This meant that the result of these particular EVMs had to be obtained through the counting of the VVPAT Slips.
The MP CEO further stated that in the run of up to the Legislative Assembly elections 2018, Madhya Pradesh added about 13,000 (21 per cent) additional polling stations as compared to the previous elections. Rajasthan’s Chief Electoral Officer Anand Kumar said the reason of delay is because of votes in the electronic voting machine (EVM) have to be matched by randomly selecting a VVPAT from a polling centre in each Assembly constituency.