Coimbatore Corporation would be using 3,612 electronic voting machines for the ensuing local body polls, for which preparations have begun.
Sources said that the civic body would use 3,612 machines and 1,548 ballot control units in 1,290 polling booths. But it would not use the voter verified paper audit trail machines.
The Corporation had finalised the locations where it would set up the booths and identified 169 of the 1,290 booths to be sensitive. At each of the 169 sensitive booths, the civic body would install closed circuit television cameras to livestream the conduct of elections.
At present the civic body was in the process of correlating the voters list with streets and wards to ensure that no voter was left out of the polling process. As on January 24, the Corporation had 15.61 lakh voters – 7.80 lakh men, 7.81 lakh women and 297 third gender voters. Once the Corporation completed the correlation process, it would send the voters’ list to the State Election Commission, the sources said.
The Corporation would designate an officer as assistant returning officer to receive nomination for five wards. In all, there would be 20 assistant returning officers for the 100 wards who would report to the Corporation commissioner.
The sources said the Corporation was also engaged in earmarking rooms to be used at the counting centre being established at the Government College of Technology on Thadagam Road. The Corporation had planned to conduct the counting zone-wise and required strong rooms, material storage room and counting room for counting votes, the sources added.
