District Election Officer and Collector S. Natarajan has launched the process of fixing of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with ballot papers for the May 16 assembly elections.
After launching the process on Monday, the election staff made ready 346 ballot units after fixing the names of 15 candidates who were in the fray for Paramakudi (Reserved) Assembly segment. By tonight, the staff would set EVMs in respect of three other constituencies in the district, the Collector said.
As there were 15 candidates each in Paramakudi and Mudukulathur and an EVM has space to accommodate names of 15 candidates and NOTA (None Of the Above), one ballot unit and one control unit each would be used in a polling station in these two constituencies, he said.
In Ramanathapuram and Tiruvadanai assembly segments were 17 and 21 candidates were in the fray respectively, two ballot units would be used per polling station in the constituencies, he said.
In all, the election staff would be setting 2,241 ballot units — 346 for Paramakudi, 738 each for Tiruvadanai and Ramanathapuram and 419 for Mudukulathur assembly segments. A total of 1,503 control units were also kept in state of readiness, the Collector said.
The setting of EVMs was done in the presence of representatives of political parties. Returning Officers G.S. Sameeran (Paramakudi), Rampradeepan (Ramanathapuram) Rajasekaran (Tiruvadanai) and Ramaiah (Mudukulathur) were present.
Sivaganga
In Sivaganga, District Election Officer and Collector S. Malarvizhi addressed the members of flying squads and advised them to be vigil to prevent distribution of money for votes.
They should watch for attempts to issue tokens to the voters through newspaper agents and milk vendors, she said.
