VVPAT tallying likely to slow down vote count on May 23

PUNE: Collector Naval Kishore Ram said the declaration of the final

vote

tally may be delayed by a couple of hours on May 23.

Addressing the press ahead of counting day on May 23, the collector said the the tallying of voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips with the electronic voting machine (

EVM

) figures, as directed by the Supreme Court, could cause the delay.

The process will commence at 8am, with the counting of postal ballots, votes received via electronically transmitted postal ballot system (ETPBS), as well as those cast using EVMs. The first round of results is likely to be released by 9am, the collector said.

The final results, however, will take time as the Supreme Court has given a directive to tally votes taken from five randomly chosen EVMs (in the presence of political representatives) with VVPAT slips in each assembly constituency, the collector said.

The collector said it was not possible to give the exact time of announcing the results, as it takes 40-50 minutes to tally votes in each machine. Moreover, in case a political representative raises a concern, the VVPAT slips will have to tallied in that case too.

On Sunday, the collector met deputy commissioner of police (traffic) Pankaj Deshmukh to review vehicular diversions near the counting venues. “No celebration with firecrackers or even a gathering of the crowd will be allowed within 200 metres of the counting areas,” he said.

The police department has sought help from SRPF, CRPF and local police personnel at the counting venues.