The Hindu : Front Page : All set for counting of votes today

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Saturday, May 16, 2009
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All set for counting of votes today

Special Correspondent

Election Commission reviews arrangement; 60,000 people will be on duty

NEW DELHI: Counting of votes for the elections in the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies, Assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Sikkim, and Assembly byelections in some States will begin at 8 a.m. on Saturday simultaneously all over the country. Early trends are expected around 9 a.m.

The first result is expected to be declared two-three hours after counting begins. Chief Election Commissioner Navin B. Chawla, along with Election Commissioners S.Y. Quraishi and V.S. Sampath, reviewed the preparations for the counting, security at the counting halls and other arrangements with the Chief Electoral Officers of the States and the Union Territories at a videoconference.

He instructed them to strictly go by the guidelines and check-list issued by the EC on the counting process.

Later, Mr. Chawla told The Hindu that the Commission was satisfied with the arrangements and postal ballots would be taken up first for counting. Around 60,000 people would be on counting duty.

The fate of 8,070 Lok Sabha contestants, including 556 women, some of them VVIPs, is sealed in the Electronic Voting Machines. There will be 14 rounds of counting for each Assembly segment coming under the respective parliamentary constituency. The counting staff have been asked to reach the centres by 5 a.m. and the observers and other senior officials by 7 a.m.

Results online

The Election Commission has launched a comprehensive website — www.eciresults.nic.in — to give regular updates. Deputy Election Commissioner Alok Shukla said the servers had a capacity of 32 Mbps and they could handle up to 30 lakh hits at a time.

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