Election Results 2018: Multistep Verification May Delay Results in All 5 States

New Delhi: A first-of-its-kind multistep verification process may cause delay in updates from counting centres in all the five states.

According to details shared by the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Madhya Pradesh VL Kantha Rao with the press, the EC officers in counting centers will do a tabulation and tally of votes after every round.Moreover, if any candidate thinks there is a discrepancy in polling, he/she will be free to object and ask for a tally of Voter verifiable paper audit trails (VVPAT) as well. Counting of votes in that case will be paused to take out and count VVPAT the slips for the corresponding votes.

While speaking to the press Rao told the press that counting of the assembly election results will take place on an average in 22 rounds in each centre.

“The counting for the assembly election results will start at 8 am tomorrow and it will be done in around 22 rounds. Around 15,000 officers and workers will be put on duty for the task,” Rao told the press.He said that the first trend is expected before 11 am, “so we have scheduled first press briefing at 11am and second briefing will be done in the evening at 5 pm that is when we expect the counting to be over".

In order to ensure transparency, Rao further informed that machines which did not give clear results due to malfunctioning during mock polls, will be taken out in the last round and the results will be tallied with the VVPAT slips. He said: "Where mock polls were not clear, the machines will be taken in the last round and the Voter-verified paper audit trail slips will be counted".