Dimapur, May 21 (EMN): Counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections and 26-Aonglenden by-election in Nagaland will begin at 8 am on March 23.
According to a press release from the state’s chief electoral officer, counting will be done in 13 locations: all the 11 districts headquarters and Pughoboto sub-division “where EVMs would be counted”; and in the office of the returning officer and commissioner of Nagaland in Kohima, where the postal ballots for parliamentary constituency will be counted.
“The counting of votes for the by-election to Nagaland Legislative Assembly from 26-Aonglenden (ST) AC would be done by the SDO (C) Hq. Mokokchung and returning officer at Mokokchung,” it informed.
For the parliamentary constituency votes, it stated, there will be two counting halls each in Dimapur, Kohima, Phek, Mokokchung, Zunheboto, Mon and Tuensang. The rest will have one hall each.
The ECI has deployed 20 counting observers for the parliamentary election and one for the by-election, it informed. All the districts have completed preparations for the counting halls.
“The superintendents of police in all the locations have made detail (sic) security arrangements and there would be three-tier security. While, the first and second tier would be manned by DEF/NAP/IR, the third and last tier close to the counting hall would be manned by personnel from CAPF.”
It also informed that the assistant returning officer from “all the 12 locations” would regularly upload the round wise data to the ECI’s online portal.
“The RO after consolidating the results received from 12 locations and also the postal ballot count and after completion of counting at all the locations would declare the results and give the certificate.”
It informed that the results would be displayed live on the website of the Election Commission of India and could be seen in the Voter Helpline Mobile App, which is available for download in Google Play Store.
After completion of the last round of counting recorded in the EVM control units of an assembly segment, there would be mandatory verification of VVPAT paper slips of randomly selected five polling stations of that assembly segment, it informed.
Those five polling stations would be selected via draw of lots by the ARO concerned in the presence of the candidates/their agents and the observers; and counting of VVPATs would be done in a sequential manner, it added.
