EVMs, control units reach counting centre

Mini control room set up at college

After polling ended at 7 p.m. Tuesday, 6,885 electronic voting machines, 5,316 control units and 5,894 voter verifiable paper audit trail machines from the 4,427 polling booths reached the constituency-wise strong rooms established at the counting centre in Government College of Technology. Sources said while machines from polling booths within the city were taken first to the strong rooms, those from the city’s periphery followed and the ones to reach the strong rooms last were those from Valparai. There, the presiding officers handed over the machines to the officers in-charge of the strong rooms and left after completing the paper work. And, the entire process ended by around 8 a.m. Wednesday. Thereafter, security personnel took over the security of the strongrooms and the counting centre, where the machines would remain till May 2, the counting day. This time, given the increase in number of booths and electronic voting machines, the administration chose to store them on racks.