As the world waits with bated breath the results of the 2019 general elections, the Election Commission has laid out a detailed plan for counting of votes and is learnt to have rejected the opposition parties’ demand of counting VVPAT slips before opening EVMs.
A senior EC official said the counting on Thursday will be taken up as per plan and a directive on the same has already been issued to all the returning officers (ROs) across the country. “As decided the counting of Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips will be taken up at the end of counts and not in the beginning as demanded by opposition parties,” he said.
The counting of votes will begin at 8 am.
As per the detail, counting directives issued to ROs, a copy of which is with The Tribune, it has been decided to count postal ballots simultaneously with Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) count due to the “sheer size” of the ballots received this time from service voters. Of the total 18 lakh registered service voters with the EC, 85 per cent have returned their ballots indicating their choice of candidate, said the official.
Till now, the postal ballots were counted in the beginning followed by counting of EVM votes.
Regional satraps, all astute politicians and mostly from southern states, are positioning themselves to play kingmakers if the Lok Sabha results do not throw up a definite mandate.
The list of these possible kingmakers is impressive: Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party, Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy of the YSR Congress Party, N Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party, K Chandrashekhar Rao of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and M.K. Stalin of the DMK.
One of these leaders, Mayawati, has already declared her prime ministerial ambitions -- not once but twice, the latest being on Wednesday. It is easy to see why she backs herself in that position. Apart from being from Uttar Pradesh, the country's most important state politically, she is India's preeminent Dalit player and a master practitioner of caste politics.
Her younger mahagathbandhan partner Akhilesh Yadav, with whom she has had a smooth alliance without the friction that one would have expected given their history as political adversaries, could position himself as an important post-poll player. However, he does not have the political heft that Mayawati does.
Naidu has emerged as the most politically active leader among the possible kingmakers. He has veered towards the UPA after supping with the NDA and is now running a campaign to mobilise opposition unity. Among the key leaders apart from Sonia Gandhi that he has met recently are Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party, Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal and Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress.
Two regional leaders who have kept their cards close to their chests are Reddy and Chandrashekhar Rao. Rao had first proposed a non-Congress, non-BJP federal front -- an idea that went out of favour soon after only to be back on the table now. His idea of a federal front appears to be to create an alliance that would give outside support to the ruling alliance at the Centre, much like the Left parties between 2004 and 2008 during UPA-I. He might not bring in huge numbers in the Lok Sabha -- Telangana has 17 Lok Sabha seats -- but an agglomeration of parties behind him would make him an important leader.
Reddy has played a wait-and-watch game. This has also meant confusion for those who have watched him from outside. If he has praised the Prime Minister, he has also said that he has forgiven the Congress party, presumably for not backing him for the chief ministership after the death of his fat
her, YS Rajasekhara Reddy, in 2009. He might not bring in huge numbers, but has shown that he can be a sharp political player.
Stalin is clearly in the UPA camp, a powerful regional satrap who is expected to do well in these elections. Sources say he has given an assurance that if it is touch and go on government formation at the Centre, he will deliver the numbers for the UPA with the help of other parties in the south.
'IN CASE OF DISCREPANCY, VVPAT COUNT TO BE TAKEN AS FINAL'
It is the first time that VVPATs will be used in a Lok Sabha election and they have become an issue of intense political debate with opposition parties keen on their use in greater numbers and also on matching the count with EVMs before the counting process begins in each constituency.
In case of any discrepancy between the VVPAT count and the EVM results, the printed paper slips count is taken as final, according to PRS Legislative Research, a non-profit research organisation.
The verification of VVPAT paper slips is conducted inside a secured VVPAT counting booth in the counting hall with access to authorised personnel only. Any counting table in the hall can be converted into VVPAT counting booth after completing the EVM vote counting.
Parliamentary constituencies generally have between five and ten assembly segments.
The Supreme Court has decided that VVPAT slips of five randomly selected polling stations for each assembly segment - with parliamentary constituency generally having between five to 10 segments - will be matched with the result shown in the respective EVMs.
This implies that VVPAT paper slips need to be matched for about 25-50 machines for each parliamentary constituency. This process requires personal supervision of returning officer/assistant returning officer. The EC has decided that the counting of five VVPATs will be done sequentially and the returning officer can declare the final result for the constituency after the VVPAT matching process has been completed.
The EVMs run on normal batteries and do not require electricity. An EVM can be used to record a maximum of 2,000 votes. If an EVM stops working, it is replaced with a new one and votes recorded until that time are safe in the memory of the control unit.
The control unit can store the result in its memory until the data is deleted or cleared. Changing of the paper roll is strictly prohibited at polling stations.
The arrangement of names of candidates in the ballot paper is in alphabetical order, with candidates from national political parties figuring first and then from other state registered parties. EVMs are given to the polling station in two stages of randomization by the EVM tracking software produced by the commission.
As per the provisions of Rule 49MA of Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, the presiding officer can obtain a written declaration from the voter if they claim that the vote cast is incorrect. If the voter gives the written declaration referred to in sub-rule (1) of Rule 49MA, the presiding officer can permit the elector to record a test vote in the voting machine in his presence and see the paper slip is generated.
So far, paper audit trail checks were done in only one polling station per assembly segment selected randomly by a draw of lots or lottery system, though the VVPAT machines are deployed in all the polling stations.
A top official said it used to take one hour when slips of one VVPAT machine were counted in one polling station per assembly segment.
"Four additional VVPATs will take on an average four additional hours to count," he said.
The official results would take at least four more hours to be declared.
The paper audit trail checks will take place over 20,000 polling stations spread across assembly seats of various states. The time taken will also depend on the number of voters in a polling station.
A cautious approach by the EC, thin margins of leads and counting of paper trail machine slips were some of the key factors that led to the delayed poll results in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in December last year.
With parties questioning the veracity of EVMs, the poll panel was extra cautious in its approach.
