2820 officials deployed for counting of votes: EC

Poll staff during a rehearsal ahead of counting of votes at Sanjouli College in Shimla Sunday. (Express Photo by Pradeep Kumar)

The Election Commission has decided to do counting of the VVPAT slips of one polling station in every Assembly constituency and webcast counting from at least 25 counting centres of total 48 in the statre. “All arrangements have been made to ensure peaceful conduct of counting process in the state on December 18,” Chief Electoral Officer Pushpendra Rajput said after a review meeting with all the deputy commissioners and returning officers.

He said the counting for all 68 Vidhan Sabha seats would start simultaneously at 48 counting centers in the state at 8 am. Total number of 2820 counting staff has been deployed which includes counting supervisors, counting assistants and micro observers. There will be 781 counting tables and 68 RO tables for counting.

He said that barricade mesh, 8 ft to 10 ft in height, has been put up near the counting centers and a separate entry passage for counting staff and counting agents has been created.

Three-tier security arrangements have been made at all counting centres. A media room and public communication room has also been set up at all counting centres. Videography and CCTV coverage will be done in all counting centres, he added. Further, general public can dial 0177-2620610 to obtain information from the election media centre. Poll results will be also available on ‘Himachal Janmat 2017’ mobile app and the website eci.nic.in.

Counting will begin with postal ballot papers to be counted at the RO table and scanned with QR reader. After that, EVM counting process will start. One polling station from each Assembly constituency will be randomly selected for counting of VVPAT slips.

In the 2017 Assembly elections, as many as 37, 83,580 electors cast their vote out of 50, 25,941 total over on November 9 with a record polling percentage of 75.28 per cent.