Daijiworld Media Network

Panaji, May 9: Due to manual counting of voter verified paper audit (VVPAT), the results of last month's elections to two Lok Sabha seats and four bypolls will be declared later than usual on May 23. Supreme Court directed the Election Commission to count the paper slips of five VVPATs in each assembly, therefore the counting staff will have to physically count around a lac VVPAT slips in the state in total.

Election Commissions rules specify that VVPATs for the five EVMs cannot be counted simultaneously hence a delay is expected. As per TOI report North Goa collector R Menaka said that the counting of the paper slips for one VVPAT has to be completed before counting of the next is taken up.

An Election officer said "counting of VVPAT slips is manual work. We will first have to count the votes on the EVMs and then count the VVPAT slips from five randomly choosing polling booths. The VVPATs for the five randomly chosen EVMs cannot happen simultaneously as it has to be under the supervision of the returning officer.”

“The results are expected to be out by 6-8 pm" he added.

The counting for the Lok Sabha and bypoll constituencies will be held simultaneously. Postal ballots counting will begin at 8 am and counting staff will begin with EVMs at 8.30 am regardless of whether the counting of postal ballots has been completed or not.

Counting for 20 South Goa assembly constituencies and the bypoll constituency of Shiroda will take place at the Multipurpose Higher School, Borda and the counting for 20 assembly constituencies of North Goa and three bypoll constituencies of Mandrem, Mapusa and Panaji will take place at the Government Polytechnic, Altinho.