Panaji/Margao: The counting for both the Parliamentary seats in Goa began at 8 am with elaborate security arrangements in place.
The ballot boxes were taken up for counting at 8 am at both the centres followed by the EVMs.
The EVMs were moved from the strong rooms to the counting centres in both the districts at 6 am. The elections were held for North Goa and South Goa Parliamentary seats on May 7.
The counting of votes is taking place at Government Polytechnic College at Altinho, Panaji and Damodar College, Comba, Margao.
The officials said that the vote counting will be held in seven rounds each for North and South Goa seats, and the results will be out before noon.
A senior election commission of India official said that one General Observer is appointed for 3 Assembly Constituencies each.
Goa has total 40 assembly constituencies combined for both the Parliamentary seats.
As per the press note by the ECI, each EVM counting Table will have one (01) Counting Supervisor (Gazetted Officer), one (01) Counting Assistant and one (01) Micro Observer on each counting Table.
Apart from these, there will be two (02) additional Micro Observers who will carry out random checks of two (02) EVMs of each round and will present the report to the General Observer.
The official said that when the result button on EVM is pressed, the candidate wise count for the polling station will be displayed and which will be noted by Counting Supervisor and Counting Assistants passed on manually to the ARO/RO who will compile the result for each round and write it on the board in the Counting Hall.
Simultaneously, the result will be updated in the Election Commission software.
Three layer security is arranged outside the counting centre with the innermost perimeter is being guarded by Central Armed Police Force (CAPF), the Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) are guarding the middle perimeter while the State Police have been posted at the outer ring of the complex.
