THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Ahead of the counting of votes on May 4, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has made arrangements for the smooth conduct of the process at the 43 locations designated for the 140 constituencies in the state.
According to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO)-Kerala Rathan Kelkar, a total of 15,465 personnel will be part of the counting process that will begin at 8 am. These include 140 returning officers, 1,340 additional ROs, 4,208 micro-observers, 4,208 counting supervisors and 5,563 counting assistants.
The postal ballots will be counted first. In the first round, the EVM votes of a maximum of 14 booths will be counted. As many as 14 tables have been set up in each centre for counting of votes from EVMs. For every 500 postal votes, a counting table will be set up under the supervision of an ARO. Ahead of the commencement of counting, the strongrooms where the EVMs and voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) units are stored, will be opened in the presence of candidates/their representatives, ECI observers and other officials.
If there is a mismatch between the number of votes polled in a polling station and the number recorded in an EVM, the VVPAT slips will be counted. The observers will mandatorily count the votes in two randomly selected EVMs in each round and VVPAT slips in five polling stations in each constituency to ensure accuracy.
After the polling on April 9, the ECI had released a provisional turnout figure of 78.27%. This was updated to 79.63% by adding postal ballots which accounted for 1.36% of the total electorate. Services votes have not been accounted for as their votes will be counted separately.