Raipur (C.G.): The officers and employees involved in counting should reach their seats by 7 am on the counting date, December 3. They have to sit at their designated table only. Postal ballots will be counted first. The counting of postal ballots will be done by the Returning Officer, for whose assistance there will be a Special Assistant Returning Officer. There will be a separate table for it, it was stated during the training session held in the Red Cross meeting room located in the Collectorate premises.

Decision regarding the validity of postal ballots will be of RO. He will be assisted by the counting supervisors and assistants.

Trainers told that there are two categories of postal ballots: ETPBS i.e. Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot and Ordinary Postal Ballot. There will be only one obvious difference between the two, the candidate's election symbol will not be mentioned on the ETPBS but party affiliation (or independent) will be mentioned. Other postal ballot papers will have election symbol but party affiliation will not be written. He said that after pre-counting test, ETPBS also has to be handled like a normal postal ballot. The counting of postal ballots will start first. Generally, one table will be allotted for counting postal votes in a constituency for every 500 votes received.

Postal ballot (whether ETPB or normal) will be invalid if the ballot paper (except ETPB) is not stamped with the signature of the RO. There is a mark against the name of more than one candidate. Even if there are different marks against the name of more than one candidate, it will be invalidated. The mark placed in front of the name of one candidate may have extended to the box of another candidate in such a way that it is not possible to determine his selection, or there may not be any mark in front of the name of any candidate. Any mark on the ballot paper reveals the identity of the voter.