Who counts the votes?
- The Election Commission of India (ECI) specifies that the counting of votes is to be done by the Returning Officer (RO).
- RO is an officer or a local authority nominated by the Commission for each constituency. In most cases the RO is the District Magistrate of the concerned district.
- Assistant Returning Officers too, are legally empowered to supervise the counting, and they take over especially if the RO has been assigned more than one constituency.
Where are the votes be counted?
- The date and time of counting of votes is fixed by the ECI.
- However, the place of counting is decided by the RO. The place should “preferably” be at the RO’s headquarters in the constituency, however, there will be no legal objection even if the place so fixed is outside the limit of the constituency.
Counting of Voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips:
- This is the first Lok Sabha election in which VVPAT slips will be compulsorily verified with the EVM count in five randomly-selected polling stations of every Assembly segment.
- Mandatory verification was introduced with the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections in 2017, but it was limited to one VVPAT per Assembly segment. This was increased to five polling stations by the Supreme Court on April 8.
- VVPAT tallying will be taken up after all rounds of EVM counting are over, and will be done sequentially — and not simultaneously — for all five polling stations.
