Voter Turnout App figures right: Satyabrata Sahoo
Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo on Monday clarified that the periodic provisional turnout figures that were provided by his office on polling day was based on projections from figures entered in a mobile application by Presiding Officers (POs) in polling stations across the state.
Sahoo offered these clarifications after wide variations between provisional polling figures and final figures led to a lot of confusion on Friday.
In an interaction with reporters on Monday, he stressed that the entry of data in this mobile app was not a statutory or mandatory task for the POs.
Many were not updating the data on the app since they were held up with other activities at the polling stations, he said.
The provisional figures provided through the day by his office were therefore based on projections from those polling stations that were feeding data into the app, he said.
He contrasted this with the statutory task of POs filling form 17A (register of votes) and form 17C (account of votes recorded), which form the basis for authentic figures. He said the final figures will be provided by Returning Officers to political parties in all seats.