Counting of votes in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh will take place on Thursday, December 8, starting at 8 AM. In a major change in the process, the counting of both postal ballots and EVM votes will start simultaneously. In the existing process, the postal ballots are counted first, after which the EVMs are taken up.
Talking to All India Radio, Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer P Bharati said that this time EVMs and postal ballot papers will be counted simultaneously.
The Election Commission has made extensive preparations to ensure a smooth and peaceful count. Gujarat will have 37 counting centres covering 182 Assembly seats. Ahmedabad district will have the most counting centres, with three, while Surat and Anand districts will each have two.
Earlier Postal Ballots were counted first. Although postal ballots are counted first, however, counting of votes of EVMs can be started after 30 minutes. Postal Ballots are considered valid for counting only if the entries on the outer envelope are correct.
Postal ballots are issued to government employees on election duty and service voters such as armed forces personnel, state armed forces deployed outside the state, and employees in foreign countries and their spouses. As people from these categories are normally not present at their constituencies, they are issued postal ballots to caste their votes during elections.
This exception is provided under Section 60 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Postal ballots received before 8 AM on counting day are taken up for counting.
Notably, people above the age of 80 and people with disabilities can also exercise their voting right through postal ballot. A total of 1966 voters who are aged 80 or above have cast exercised their voting right through postal ballot for 21 seats in Ahmedabad.
Gujarat assembly elections were held in two phases. The first phase was conducted on December 1 and the second on 5. The turnout in the elections was 64.33 percent, the lowest in ten years. Only 3.16 crore of the 4.9 crores registered voters voted.
While the change in pattern in counting will not make in difference to the election results, it will bring major differences to the early morning trends during the counting. When only postal ballots are counted first in the morning, the results generally do not reflect the final results. This is because, only a small number of postal ballots are received for each polling station, and their numbers are not enough to represent the voting pattern. With EVM vote counting beginning with the start of counting, it will give a more accurate early prediction. This decision will result in the declaration of results earlier by half an hour.
Apart from counting for assembly elections of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, counting for bye-elections to six Assembly Constituencies, one each in Odisha, Rajasthan, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and two in Uttar Pradesh and one Parliamentary Constituency of Uttar Pradesh will also take place tomorrow.
