ECI completes preparations for Kerala vote counting

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday said that all procedures have been completed in connection with the tallying of the votes polled in the April 9 Assembly elections in Kerala and issued a number of dos and don’ts to be followed by political parties’ agents and the media during the counting process on May 4.

Kerala Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Rathan U Kelkar said, in a statement, that the counting will begin at 8 am on May 4 at 140 centres located in 43 places, and a total of 15,465 personnel will be involved in the process.

The personnel include 140 Returning Officers (ROs), 1,340 Assistant ROs (AROs), 4,208 micro-observers, 4,208 counting supervisors and 5,563 counting assistants, he said.

The counting of votes will start with the postal ballots, and EVMs of a maximum of 14 booths will be counted in one round, the CEO said.

He said that the rooms where the polling materials are kept will be opened in the presence of the candidates or their authorised representatives, the observer designated by the ECI, the concerned officials, and will be video recorded.

During the counting process, if there is any discrepancy between the number of votes cast in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and the number of votes cast by the voters in the booth, the VVPAT slips (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) will be counted, he said in the statement.

The VVPAT slips will bear the serial number, name and symbol of the candidate, it added. After verifying the number of votes cast in the EVM, it will be reconciled with the information in form 17C part one which contains the account of votes recorded at a polling station.

In order to ensure efficiency of the counting process, two EVM observers will carry out random counting in each round, and besides that, VVPAT of 5 booths in each constituency will be compulsorily counted, Kelkar said.