Kerala Assembly Elections: Now, over to booths

KOCHI: District-level election officials are busy making final arrangements for the transparent and smooth conduct of polling. Distribution of electronic voting machines and other polling materials from 14 centres in the district has been completed. The team of officials reached respective polling booths by evening and made arrangements.

As many as 10,572 polling officials have been appointed with a reserve team of 2,000 officials. As many as 5,000 police personnel have been deployed for security in the district. The total number of polling booth in the district is 2,054 and booths having more than 1,750 voters are being divided by sanctioning an auxiliary polling station. As many as 27 polling stations were found to have more than 1,750 voters.  There are 71 model polling stations, five in each constituency.

The district has 24,71,515 voters, an increase of 2,66,715 from the 2011 elections. Piravom constituency has the highest number of voters, while Ernakulam has the least. As for individual booths, Ramanthuruth in Ernakulam constituency will cater to the least number of voters (only 19), while North Ponjassery LP School, Vengola in Perumbavoor has the highest number of voters, 1,925.

As many as 2,695 voting machines are being used in the district along with the Voter-verified paper audit trail machines to be used for first time in Ernakulam and Thrikkakara constituencies. With 171, Kunnathunadu has the highest number of polling booths while Ernakulam has only 122 booths.

In an effort to increase the voting percentage, authorities have instructed to set up ramps in polling booths to cater to the elderly and the differently-abled. Playing area for kids, who accomany elders to the polling station, also have been set up in ‘model booths’ in all constituencies. The district administration and Election Commission have made arrangements to ensure basic facilities including food, drinking water and medical assistance if needed for the polling officials.