Movement of electronic voting machines along with VVPAT machines from the Virudhunagar district EVM warehouse to the seven Assembly constituencies began here on Monday.
After the first randomisation conducted on Friday, District Election Officer V.P. Jeyaseelan oversaw the collection of the machines by Assistant Returning Officers of all Assembly constituencies. The officials first started identifying the ballot units, control units and VVPATs machines by their serial numbers and picked them from the warehouse based on the randomisation.
The units were taken in covered trucks fitted with GPS equipment with guarded by armed police personnel. The entire process of identifying and transporting the machines were videographed. Representatives of recognised political parties were present during the excercise. The machines would be taken to the storage room in each of the Assembly constituency and would be under round-the-clock police security.
The second randomisation of EVMs and VVPATs would be taken up at the constituency-level after the final list of candidates was prepared. In this randomisation, the ballot units, control units and VVPATs would be selected for each polling booth.
Virudhunagar district has 1,893 polling stations. The highest number of polling stations are in Sattur Assembly constituency with 286 booths. followed by Srivilliputtu 283, Sivakasi and Tiruchuli 276 each, Rajapalayam 262 and Virudhunagar and Aruppukottai 255 booths each.
Besides, 20% reserve EVMs and VVPATs would be sent to each of the seven Assembly constituencies.
