Patna: Counting of votes for the Bihar Assembly elections will begin at 8am on Friday, with postal ballots to be taken up first, followed by electronic voting machine (EVM) votes from 8.30am onwards, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Over 5 crore (50 million) votes cast across 243 assembly constituencies will be counted at 4,372 tables across the state. The Election Commission has said that all arrangements for transparency, security and efficiency are complete.
Postal ballots will be counted in the presence of the returning officer or assistant returning officer, alongside candidates or their authorised agents. A returning officer and counting observer will be deployed for each constituency to oversee the process.
Each EVM control unit will be presented at the counting table for verification of seals and serial numbers before the counting begins. In case of any dispute or discrepancy in vote records, the corresponding Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips will be matched with the EVM count.
After EVM counting concludes, five polling stations in each constituency will be randomly selected for cross-verification of VVPAT slips against the electronic tally, in the presence of candidates and their agents.
More than 18,000 counting agents appointed by candidates will monitor the process to ensure fairness. Each counting table will have a supervisor, an assistant and a micro-observer.
The ECI has instructed that results be compiled round-wise and constituency-wise and uploaded to its official results portal by the respective returning officers.
Voting in Bihar was conducted in two phases on November 6 and 11. The state recorded its highest-ever voter turnout of 67.13%, with 74.5 million registered voters and more than 50 million participating in the polls.
