handbook for presiding officers - Chief Electoral Officer, Govt. of Sikkim

31CHAPTER X
5SETTING UP OF VOTING MACHINE BEFORE
6COMMENCEMENT OF POLL
1. Preliminaries before poll
1.1 The Returning Officer prepares the voting machine in his office before
sending it to your polling station, by setting the Control Unit of the machine for
a particular number of candidates contesting the election from that particular
constituency. Before a voting machine is put in actual use at the polling
station, some preparations, in addition to the preparations made at the
Returning officer’s level, are necessary at the polling station. These
preparations have to be done by the Presiding Officer in the presence of the
contesting candidates/their agents before the commencement of poll.
1.2 You should start these preliminary preparations at least about one hour before
the time fixed for the commencement of poll, so that the preparations are over
by the time fixed for commencement of the poll. If any polling agent is not
present, the preparations should not be postponed so as to await the arrival of
the polling agent. Nor should you start the preparations again if any polling
agent turns up late.
2. Preparations on the Ballot Unit
2.1 The Ballot Unit is already duly prepared in all respects at the Returning
Officer’s level and no further preparation of this unit is required at the polling
station on the day of poll, except that its interconnecting cable has to be
plugged into the control unit.
2.2 At the time of taking delivery of the voting machine alongwith other polling
materials, you must have already carried out the checks mentioned in para 2
of chapter III. As instructed therein, you must have checked that you have
been provided with the requisite number of Ballot Units, the ballot paper on
each such unit has been properly fixed and properly aligned under the ballot
paper screen, the slide switch on each unit has been set to the appropriate
position and each unit is duly sealed and is carrying the address tag both at
the right top portion and the right bottom portion.
3. Interlinking of Ballot Units and control unit
3.1 Where the number of contesting candidates exceeds 16, more than one Ballot
Unit, depending upon the actual number of contesting candidates, are to be
used. All such Ballot Units to be used at a polling station are to be inter-linked
and only the first Ballot Unit will be linked with the control unit.
3.2 The Ballot Units shall be so inter-linked that the second Ballot Unit, i.e., the
Ballot Unit in which the slide switch is set at position 2, is linked with the first
Ballot Unit in which the slide switch is set at position 1. Where three Ballot
Units are to be used, the third Ballot Unit will be linked with the second Ballot
Unit and the second with the first, and where all the four Ballot Units are to be
used, the fourth unit will be linked with the third unit, the third with the second
and so on.