All results to be out by noon

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MAY 12. The long-drawn suspense usually associated with the announcement of election results will be conspicuous by its absence this time when the counting process starts tomorrow morning.By noon tomorrow, the results from all the 140 constituencies will come tumbling out in one short burst, almost simultaneously. The electronic devices used for the polling this time guarantees to remove much of the complications associated with the counting.

According to the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. P. J. Thomas, the first trends will be available from the counting stations by 9-30 a.m. The counting is to begin at 140 stations at 8 a.m.

A major feature of this election will be the virtual absence of invalid votes. The electronic polling machines are devised in such a way that even if a voter happens to press two buttons by accident, only the one on which the pressure is applied first will register the vote. The only chance of invalid votes is with the postal ballots, for which the conventional paper ballots are still used.

During the last Assembly election, there were over four lakh invalid votes in the State. In more than 30 constituencies, the number of invalid votes was higher than the margin of victory. This number was, in fact, nearly four times the difference between the LDF votes and the UDF votes in the State as a whole. Thus the absence of invalid votes will be of great significance this time.

There will be 10 counting tables in each of the 140 counting stations. The counting can go up to 17 rounds in each of these stations. The first round counting might take around 30 minutes because of the procedures associated with getting the work started. The subsequent rounds might consume only about 10 minutes each.

The Pala constituency, which is witnessing a straight contest between the Kerala Congress(M) leader, Mr. K. M. Mani, and the LDF candidate, Mr. Uzhavoor Vijayan, is likely to come up with the first result.The counting stations across the State have been computer- linked to provide the results in a consolidated form. There will be terminals in all the district headquarters. A terminal has also been made available to Doordarshan to enable simultaneous telecast of the trends.

The public can get the results over the phone from the headquarters of the Public Relations Department in Thiruvananthapuram (phone nos. 329755, 329677, 336317, 333988, 333799 and 333766). From 8-30 a.m. onwards, these numbers will be active.

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Section  : State Elections
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