Make foolproof arrangements for counting: CEO to officials

Secretariat (Velagapudi): District election officers (DEOs) should make foolproof arrangements for the vote counting to be taken up on June 4 in the vote counting centres following the guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India, said Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Mukesh Kumar Meena while addressing all the DEOs across the state through video conference from the Secretariat here on Thursday.

Reviewing arrangements vote counting across the state, the CEO expressed satisfaction over the conduct of elections on May 13 successfully barring stray incidents. He called for the same spirit in the planned preparation for the vote counting.

He suggested to the officials to provide the vote counting details to the political parties in writing in advance to avoid any disputes. The officials should devise different routes to transfer EVMs from strong rooms to the counting centres and to the candidates and their agents. The counting of postal ballots should be taken up first and EVMs later.

Trained staff should be pressed into service for vote counting and if necessary, they should be trained in advance. High speed Internet facility along with computers and printers should be set up in the centres. Trained staff should be taken up for data entry from time to time into the ENCORE nodal app of the ECI.

Separate parking facility should be arranged for the counting officials and their mobile phones should be handed over at a designated counter. Unofficial persons without identity cards should not be allowed at the vote counting centres.

Meena said that the officials should regularly supervise the working of CC cameras set up at the strong rooms, the seals to the doors and security corridors. The police officials should be alert on the security of the strongrooms.

Additional CEOs P Koteswara Rao and M N Harendira Prasad also participated in the video conference.