With the counting of votes of Lok Sabha election to be taken up on June 4, a training session for officials to be assigned counting duty for Dindigul Parliamentary constituency was conducted here on Wednesday.
Collector M. N. Poongodi, chaired the meeting in the presence of District Revenue officer S. H. Sheikh and Assistant Returning Officers.
A total of 408 officials, comprising 102 micro observers, supervisors, assistants and office assistants will be deployed for the counting work. The control units of electronic voting machines from six Assembly constituencies - Palani with 323 polling stations, Oddanchathiram (282), Authoor (320), Nilakottai (270), Natham (327) and Dindigul (290) - would be taken up for counting.
With the counting to be taken up on 14 tables in each Assembly constituency, the counting would go for 20 t0 24 rounds.
The counting officials and staff have been asked to be present with their identity cards at the counting centre in Anna University Engineering College in Silvarpatti here at 6 a.m. on June 4.
The Election Observer would allot the tables to them on the day of counting and they should present at the counting tables at 7.45 a.m. while the counting would start at 8.30 a.m..
The counting staff were briefed about opening of the EVMs, opening of postal votes covers, the procedure to declare “invalid” postal votes and sealing of postal votes
Moreover, the office assistants, who would carry the control units from the strong room to the counting hall, would be given T-shirts in unique colours, bearing the name of the Assembly constituency and the number of counting table they have been allotted for.
This will help to easily identify the control units meant for each table.
District Election Officer would administer an oath of secrecy to the counting officials at 7.55 am.
The counting process would start with the counting of postal votes at 8 a.m. All the postal votes received before 8 a.m. on the same day will be taken up for counting.
The list of serial numbers of the control units to be taken up for counting in each table on each round would be displayed at the counting hall.
