KOCHI: Around 80.7 per cent voters cast their vote in a repolling held at booth number 83, East Kadungalloor Service Cooperative Bank auditorium, under the Ernakulam Lok Sabha constituency on Tuesday.
Out of 912 voters in the booth, 736 turned up to cast their votes. Compared to the voting on April 23, the repolling witnessed a 2.3 per cent increase.
Interestingly, more women voters turned up to cast their votes. As many as 374 women cast their vote, whereas only 362 men voted.
The turnout of 80.7 per cent at Kadungalloor is higher than the Ernakulam polling percentage of 77.54, and the state average of 77.68 per cent.
The repoll was necessitated after the presiding officer failed to clear the votes polled during the mock poll before the commencement of actual voting on April 23. As many as 715 people cast their votes on April 23, but the machine showed the total number of votes as 758, an excess of 43.
Except for a few hours in the afternoon, a large number of voters was witnessed at the booth.
The voters waited nearly one hour to poll in the early hours owing to the long queue. The candidates of the constituency – P Rajeev, Hibi Eden and Alphonse Kannanthanam – turned up at the booth early in the morning. Since a mistake from the polling officer resulted in the re-polling, the Election Department and the District Administration have deployed experienced persons to conduct the polling procedures this time. While a special Tahsildar was appointed as the presiding officer, revenue officials were appointed as polling officers.
To avoid any kind of untoward incident in the booth, the District Administration deployed over 30 cops at the booth under two DySPs.
Meanwhile, the Election Department shifted the polling machines and the documents to the strong room set up at Cochin University of science and Technology (Cusat) with high security.
“The election went on smoothly. No technical glitch was recorded during the re-polling day. After the election, we have shifted the voting machine and the VVPAT to the strong room at Cusat. It will be taken out for counting on May 23,” said Shanavas, Election Deputy Collector.