Overview
- Election officials began verification at the Chintadripet strong room on Wednesday, July 29, with BEL engineers and candidate representatives present and two polling-station sets checked on the first day.
- The procedure will examine 42 ballot units, 14 control units and 14 VVPAT units by displaying the burned memory for comparison with Form 20, erasing stored data, running two mock polls and then checking the microprocessor.
- Candidates must pay Rs 47,200 per polling station to trigger the checks and the facility is being offered to those who finished among the top three in a constituency.
- Similar verification exercises are scheduled for Uthiramerur and Rajapalayam while Tiruppattur’s request has been put on hold because an election petition over a one-vote result is pending in court.
- Officials say this is a technical reliability test rather than a vote recount and the outcome is meant to either bolster confidence in the machines or supply evidence for any legal challenges; a separate Madras High Court petition about Stalin’s affidavit was adjourned with directions for fuller translations and documents.