As many as 1, 735 polling booths for the Lok Sabha election in 14 Assembly constituencies in Ernakulam district were brought under the ‘webcam live telecasting’ system for continuous monitoring.
The election wing stated that real-time monitoring of the voting process was possible through the system. Fourteen television sets were set up at the control room at the District Collectorate to watch the live footage. The activities at sensitive booths in Ernakulam and Chalakudy Lok Sabha constituencies were also monitored through the webcam live telecasting system.
The technicians were told to ensure that the cameras did not cover the ballot units and the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) that helped the voters check if their votes were cast correctly. The webcasting system was managed by officials of Akshaya centres and the IT Mission. The live monitoring was conducted from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the polling day.
Besides verifying the visuals received through the webcasting system, the control room also watched activities related to poll manager website, call centre and GPS monitoring of vehicles that carried the electronic voting machines from the polling booths to the designated centres.
The polling percentage was updated regularly through the poll manager website. A call centre functioned at the control room to provide help to the polling officials at the time of polling. It also had facility to track the vehicles carrying EVMs and election flying squads through GPS monitoring.
