Assembly Election Results 2018: Will cross-verification delay results in all states?

Bhopal, Dec 11: Counting of votes in Madhya Pradesh is likely to be delayed by at least two hours due to cross-verification with voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) units.

VVPAT machines are being used for the first time in the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections, and the Election Commission has mandated the verification of VVPAT slips with electronic voting machine (EVM) results in at least one randomly selected polling station from each of its 230 constituencies.

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.

Counting of votes for five state assemblies began on Tuesday amid tight security. In the multi-phase polling, Chhattisgarh voted on November 12 (18 seats) and November 20 (72 seats); Madhya Pradesh (230 seats) and Mizoram (40 seats) on November 28; and Rajasthan (199 seats) and Telangana (119 seats) on December 7. Over 8,500 candidates were in the fray in polls for these assemblies.