The vote-counting process for Rajasthan Legislative Assembly elections is set to take place on December 3rd. The counting will be held at 36 centres, covering all 199 constituencies of the state. Chief Electoral Officer, Praveen Gupta, stated that the counting of postal ballots will start at 8 am at all centres, followed by the counting of electronic voting machines (EVM) at 8:30 am on December 3rd.
He stated that in Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Nagaur, there will be two centres each, while in the remaining 30 election districts, there will be one centre for the counting of votes. This way, counting will take place at 36 centres for the 199 constituencies.
The security measures in and around the counting centres have been strengthened. A three-tier security system has been set up to ensure that the counting process proceeds without any disruption. The Chief Electoral Officer has emphasized the significance of announcing the results promptly, following the Election Commission’s guidelines.
To ensure impartiality in the counting process, the Election Commission of India will implement mandatory verification methods. After the completion of the entire counting process, a random selection of 5% VVPATs from each polling centre of every assembly constituency will be done through a lottery, and their slips will be matched with the votes received from the EVM.
The monitoring of returning officers and supervisors, as well as the counting and matching of slips from VVPAT machines with those generated by the EVM, will be carried out in the presence of candidates or their agents.
Gupta informed that for the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly Elections 2023, the Election Commission of India provided online training for counting teams, including district election officers, assistant district election officers, returning officers, additional returning officers, and IT staff. On Tuesday, he inspected the Anterjila Postal Ballot Center at Khaitan Polytechnic College in Jaipur, where he observed the preparations for counting postal ballots and provided necessary instructions.
