Deployment of an additional 1,332 EVMs for four legislative assembly constituencies began on Monday as the number of candidates increased in the Erode and Nilgiris LS seats.
District Collector Rajagopal Sunkara inspected the dispatch of voting machine.
There are 2,222 polling booths in 8 assembly constituencies in Erode district. Apart from the machines required for them, an additional 20 percent electronic voting machines and 30 percent VVPAT (voter verifiable paper audit trail) have already been sent to the respective constituencies.
Accordingly, 2,663 electronic vote registration machines, 2,663 control machines and 2,885 VVPAT have been sent to all 8 constituencies. In this case, as additional candidates are contesting in Erode and Nilgiri Lok Sabha constituencies, the work of sending additional voting machines and VVPAT to each polling booth was conducted on Monday.
The work of sending the machines to the respective constituencies started from the warehouse of EVMs in Erode RDO office complex under the leadership of District Collector Rajagopal Sunkara and General Observer Rajeev Ranjan Meena in the presence of political party representatives.
Regarding this, District Collector Rajagopal Sunkara said: As there are 31 candidates in Erode district, 2 voting machines are being used. In one voting machine 16 candidates are allocated and in the other the last place is for NOTA.
Similarly, 2 voting machines are used in Nilgiris constituency as there are more candidates. 1,111 voter registration machines are being sent in the first phase and 221 additional voter registration machines are being sent in the first phase to 4 constituencies namely Erode East, Erode West, Modakurichi and Bhavanisagar, making a total of 1,332 machines.
Work has been allotted to the poll workers. Before the next exercise, they will be informed in which legislative assembly constituency they are working. Accordingly, if the vote is within the Lok Sabha constituency where they are working, they will be given a form to register their vote there, and if they are working in another Lok Sabha constituency, they will be given a postal vote form.
He said that at present there are 380 additional machines in Erode Voting Machine Warehouse including 21 Voting Machines, 204 Control Machines, 155 VVPAT.