Is the Election Commission contemplating simplifying the voting pattern and counting of votes for the graduates’ constituency?
Senior officials, on condition of anonymity, told The Hindu that the EC was proposing to bring in certain modifications, including single transferrable voting system. Officials of Mysuru, Mandya, Chamarajanagar and Hassan districts spent nearly 27 hours from Monday morning to count votes of the South Graduates’ constituency. As many as 17 candidates were in the fray and the officials had to calculate preferential votes of a few candidates, who got most of the votes but could not get enough to win. Counting of preferential votes, which has to be done manually, was done all through Monday night. There were a few formulas, which were to be adopted by the officials, to calculate votes. A few officials said that the procedure of counting preferential votes was cumbersome and they have also pleaded with the EC to modify the process.
The EC has also been thinking of introducing Electronic Voting Machines. Deputy Commissioners, Additional Deputy Commissioners, and tahsildars were among the 160 officials posted at counting centres.
