There is no proposal for counting of votes of any Assembly constituency in Chhattisgarh through the slip of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Subrat Sahoo said on Tuesday.
“On December 11, in all district headquarters and the Assembly constituencies, counting is to be held based on number of postal ballot papers received and the votes registered in the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM),” he said.
In each Assembly constituency, VVPAT machine slips will be counted to tally them with registered votes in EVMs, the CEO said.
Sahoo was countering a news matter published which claimed that in Dhamtari district at one or two assembly constituencies, the counting will be done through VVPAT slip.
“The whole counting process will as per the directions handed over by Election Commission of India for the State Assembly Election-2018,” he emphasized.
“As per the directive, in each assembly constituency, the slips of VVPAT machine that has been randomly selected will be counted. It is to verify and tally the recorded votes of the EVM,” the CEO said.
The selection of VVPAT machine will be done through lottery system. All the candidates and their representatives will be present when the lottery is taken out, he said.
“Additional to it, in such control unit where the result of voting is not displayed, in such cases the counting will be done through the VVPAT slip,” Sahoo said.
He said that Assembly-wise table have been kept where the counting of votes will be done. Each Assembly constituency has 14 tables. Additional table will be given for postal ballot paper counting.
During counting of postal ballots, one Assistant Returning Officer will be deputed. Each postal ballot table will have on additional counting agent, Sahoo said.