Security upped across Erode East for bypoll

ERODE: More than 3,000 police personnel have been deployed across Erode East assembly constituency to ensure incident free polling on Monday. Voting would begin at 7am and end at 6pm. Counting is scheduled for March 2.
Besides those from Erode, police personnel drawn from neighbouring districts like Coimbatore and Tirupur have also been deployed. "Additional security would be provided to vulnerable polling booths," said district election officer Krishnan Unni.
There are 238 polling booths in Erode East out of which 32 are classified as vulnerable. On Sunday, the electronic voting machines were sent to the booths in 20 vehicles fitted with GPS, escorted by police, paramilitary personnel and zonal election officers. Each booth will have five EVMs to accommodate the names of 77 candidates plus one button for NOTA.
Besides EVMs, every booth has one control unit and one VVPAT machine (voter verifiable paper audit trail). As many as 1,206 polling staff members have been roped in for the voting day, besides 286 micro observers to monitor the voting exercise. Each polling station would have four election staff members, including one presiding officer.
Once the voting is over by 6pm, the EVMs would be shifted to the strong rooms in Government College of Engineering at Chithode. Three-tier security ring has been put in place in the college too, said Krishnan Unni.
Eighty-one other items, including indelible ink, stationery items like pen, paper and glue, and cardboard sheets used to cover EVMs were sent to each polling station. Assuring that adequate checks and balances have been put in place to prevent bogus voting, Krishnan Unni said an 'absentee, shift and dead (ASD)' voters' list has been given to presiding officers of polling stations. This would eliminate attempts to cast votes of absentee voters.
Election authorities conducted a check in lodges to see if functionaries of political parties from outside the constituency were still staying in Erode East. Some of the temporary election shelters that were not removed on Saturday were dismantled on Sunday after a warning from the authorities.