LucknowOne hour ago
Akhilesh Yadav and Jayant Chaudhary have appealed to beware of irregularities in counting of postal ballots. Even before this, allegations of irregularities in postal ballots have been leveled against the governments. What are the rules and what is the controversy regarding EVM, vote counting and postal ballot, today everyone tells you…
How voting changed with the advent of EVMs
The use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) started in 1999. But only a few seats. It is being fully used since 2004. Earlier, all elections were conducted through ballot paper. But EVMs changed the whole story.
What happens to EVMs after voting?
Now, as soon as the voting is over, sealed Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are brought to the counting center and kept in the strong room. Its security is beefed up 24 hours a day. The security of the strong room is done by the security circle of CRPF personnel and policemen. So that no tampering can be done in EVMs.
On the day of counting also, the same security wheel is guarding the counting center. Usually the State Returning Officer fixes a place of counting of votes inside the district headquarters. That’s where the votes are counted.
Then what is this postal ballot paper?
A postal ballot is a postal ballot. It can be used in elections by those people who are unable to vote in the elections due to their job or any other reason. The Election Commission already decides the number of postal voters in the constituency. So only those people are sent postal ballot.
The voter after casting his vote for the candidate of his choice returns this postal ballot by post or electronically back to the competent authority of the Election Commission. When these people vote with the help of postal ballot, they are also called ‘Service Voters’ or ‘Absentee Voters’.
First the postal ballot is counted, this is the complete counting rule
- On the day of counting, from 6 am to 7 am, the concerned staff and agents are allowed inside the counting center.
- First the postal ballots are counted.
- Counting starts with EVMs only after counting of postal ballots.
- The counting supervisors first check the EVMs and ensure that there is no tampering with the machine.
- The counting staff counts the votes through EVMs in front of the counting agents.
- As soon as the one-stage counting process is completed. The counting staff gives all the information to the Returning Officer. After that the results of that stage are announced. The information about the results of each phase is also fed to the Election Commission’s server.
- This process of counting of votes continues till the counting of votes is completed.
- After the counting of votes is over, the candidate who gets the most votes is declared the winner by the Returning Officer giving him a certificate of victory.
The rule of postal ballot is to count first, but it is alleged that after counting deliberately
Regarding the postal ballot, the rule of the Election Commission is that the postal ballot will be counted first. Counting of votes will be started from EVMs only after the counting of postal ballots. Due to this, many big leaders of the opposition have accused the governments of rigging the postal ballots and counting after EVMs.
After losing the Bihar elections by a very close margin, Tejashwi Yadav had accused the administration of messing up the postal ballot under pressure from the BJP. The Rashtriya Lok Dal had also created a ruckus over the counting of postal ballots after losing the 2019 general elections by close margins in Baghpat and Muzaffarnagar.
Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Jayant Chaudhary said that his party was winning the election, but at the behest of the BJP, the postal ballots were recounted and they were defeated.
Akhilesh and Jayant are warning
In the press conference of Muzaffarnagar recently, Jayant Chaudhary expressed the apprehension of irregularities in the postal ballot and appealed to the employees and policemen to vote cautiously. Akhilesh also said yes to Jayant and asked those who voted through postal ballot to be alert to the officials.
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