Election Commission Reports No Vote Count Discrepancies Between EVMs and VVPATs in Maharashtra Assembly Election

The Election Commission announced on Tuesday that it found no discrepancies between the candidate-wise vote counts in EVMs and the corresponding slips in VVPATs, following the counting of votes at five polling stations in each assembly constituency across the state.

The mandatory counting of slips from 1,440 VVPATs across all 288 constituencies was completed on November 23 during the vote-counting process. On that day, polling stations were selected in front of Election Commission observers and in the presence of candidate representatives, with five polling stations chosen from each constituency. "After the vote counting at five centres in each constituency, no discrepancies were found between the candidate-wise vote count in EVMs and the number of slips in the VVPAT machines," stated Kiran Kulkarni, Additional Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of the state.

Election Commission Procedure for Counting Votes
As per the Election Commission of India's prescribed procedure, the counting of VVPAT slips from five polling stations in each constituency is mandatory. The counting process cannot be considered complete, and the winning candidate cannot be declared until this step is finalised.