CCTV installed in vote counting centers
ILAM, June 29: Following the infamous vote tearing incident of Chitwan district's Bharatpur Metropolis during the first phase of local elections, Ilam district has taken up preventive measures to avoid similar incidents during its vote counting process.
The district participated in the second phase of local elections on Wednesday. With the successful conclusion of the polls, election officers in the district have set up CCTV cameras in vote counting center for monitoring of the vote counting.
So far, CCTV cameras have already been installed in vote counting centers of Ilam Municipality, Suryadaya Municipality and Chulachuli Rural Municipality.
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In Ilam Municipality, videos recorded from the CCTV cameras can be watched live just outside the vote counting center's building through large screen LCD monitor TV. Officials said such measure has been taken to ensure transparent and reliable vote counting.
“This will also help minimize crowd inside the vote counting centers and manage vote counting while making the whole process transparent and reliable,” said the district's Chief Election Officer Nawaraj Dahal.
At the vote counting center of Ilam Municipality, seating arrangements have been made for workers and representatives of political parties who stay there to witness the fairness in vote counting process. Likewise, there is a separate seating arrangement for media.
“We have taken this step to increase the pace of vote counting while making it transparent at the same time. This time, we are determined to prevent the incidents like the one that plagued Bharatpur,” Dahal said. “We have decided to publish vote count after an interval of counting 200 votes. Election Officers of all ten local units of the district can be taken as information officers to get vote count update,” he added.
Preparation is being made in Suryadaya to install LCD monitor outside the vote counting center, informed Rajendra Bhattarai. “We have completed all the preparations to make vote counting process fair and well managed. We are even prepared to count votes of two wards simultaneously if vote counting process takes too long time,” he added.
Chief Election Officer Dahal said elections have been held successfully in all four municipality and six rural municipalities of the district.
“As we successfully held local elections in all the local units, we are confident of making the vote counting process a success too,” he added.
