Counting process will kick off with ballot votes

By Japan K Pathak, Ahmedabad, 19 December 2012

Counting of votes for the Gujarat assembly elections will kick off with counting of postal ballot votes at 8.00 am on Thursday. Some postal ballots votes are already arrived through the facilitation centers. However final bunch of postal ballets will be delivered by the postal department by 8.00 am on Thursday at counting centers.

There’s a rule that final two rounds of counting of EVM votes can kick off only after completion of counting of all postal votes. So if postal votes are not counted completely, the final two rounds of counting of EVM votes need to be stopped as per the rule.

Once arrived at counting center, the postal ballots will be put on the Returning Officer’s table where in presence of candidate/his agent the process of counting will start. If postal ballots are less in number, its counting will over by 8.30 am. But if they are more, the counting may go on for two or even three hours.

Returning officers of 21 seats of Ahmedabd district have already received 25,000 postal ballots(Each RO has around 45 ballot boxes). More such ballots will come from the postal department by 8.00 am. Postal ballot votes come from specially arranged polling for Police persons, ROs in training, armed forces, polling personals etc. The Election Commission had dispatched total 3.19 lakh postal ballots. Of them around 3 lakh are likely to be counted.