Goa: Manual VVPAT counting to delay results

PANAJI: The results of last month’s elections to two Lok Sabha seats and four bypolls will be declared later than usual on May 23 as a result of manual counting of voter verified paper audit trail slips (VVPATs) of 220 EVMs. Counting staff will have to physically count around a lakh VVPAT slips in the state in total. Last month, the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission (EC) of India to count the paper slips of five VVPATs in each assembly segment. An official said that a delay is apprehended as the EC’s rules specify that VVPATs for the five EVMs cannot be counted simultaneously. North Goa collector R Menaka told TOI that the counting of the paper slips for one VVPAT has to be completed before counting of the next is taken up. ‘Counting slips from one VVPAT may take an hour’“Counting of VVPAT slips is manual work. We will first have to count the votes on the EVMs and then count the VVPAT slips from five randomly-chosen polling booths. The VVPATs for the five randomly-chosen EVMs cannot happen simultaneously as it has to be under the supervision of the returning officer or assistant returning officer,” an election official said, adding that the results are expected to be out by 6-8pm. Counting for the 20 assembly constituencies of North Goa and three bypoll constituencies of Mandrem, Mapusa and Panaji will take place at the Government Polytechnic, Altinho, while counting for the 20 South Goa assembly constituencies and the bypoll constituency of Shiroda will take place at the Multipurpose Higher Secondary School, Borda. While the counting of postal ballots will begin at 8am, counting staff will begin with the EVMs at 8:30am irrespective of whether the counting of postal ballots has been completed or not. The counting for the Lok Sabha and bypoll constituencies will be held simultaneously.