Re-polling ordered in a booth in Tenkasi constituency

The Election Commission has ordered re-polling in a booth in Tenkasi Assembly constituency on Wednesday (May 18).

Sources in the election section in the Collectorate said that 592 of the 972 votes were polled in polling booth number 56 at Sri Ponnambalam Middle School in Tenkasi Assembly constituency between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Monday.

While the records maintained by the polling officers and the agents of the candidates showed that only 592 votes had been polled, the Electronic Voting Machine of the booth showed that 644 votes had been polled.

During enquiry, it was found that the officials commenced actual polling at 7 a.m. without deleting the 52 votes the officials and the agents had polled during ‘mock polling’, the mandatory exercise conducted prior to the commencement of actual polling to ascertain the smooth and correct functioning of the EVM.

Since this embarrassing mistake committed by the polling officials of booth 56 was informed to Collector and District Election Officer C. Samayamoorthy on Monday night, he, in turn, forwarded the information to the Election Commission.

Based on the recommendation of the District Election Officer and the General Observer for Tenkasi constituency, the EC decided to conduct re-polling at booth 56 of Tenkasi Assembly segment on Wednesday.

Officials began actual polling at 7 a.m. without deleting the 52 votes officials and agents polled during ‘mock polling’