EC's special steps for transparent TN bypoll counting

Chennai, Jun 28 (UNI) The Election Commission (EC) of India has made special arragnements to ensure high level of transparency during counting of votes, cast in the June 26 bypoll to the Madurai West Assembly Constituency to be taken up tomorrow.

An official release here said as part of the special arrangements, additional counting assistants would be posted for each counting table.

This would be in addition to the officials posted as counting assistants and supervisors.

The general observers appointed by the EC would pick up control units at random during each round of counting. The Returning Officer (RO) would announce the results of each round only after obtaining clearance from the observer.

If any discrepancy was found between the result obtained from the table and the one ascertained through random checking, the observer would arrange for re-verification.

The observers would remain present in the counting hall and periodically inspect the counting tables to ensure the counting was on according to the instructions of the Commission, in a transparent and systematic way.

It said ROs should obtain the list of counting agents with their photographs from all the contesting candidates, prior to the date fixed for the counting and issue photo identity cards to the agents with his seal and signature to enable the agents to enter the counting centres.

Only agents with photo identity cards would be allowed inside the counting halls.

Barricades would also be provided for the counting table to make the counting process transparent to the agents.

UNI