The Election Commission of India on Tuesday said that counting of votes in Bihar will take extra time due to 63% more EVMs than 2015 assembly elections as additional polling booths were set up to follow social distancing to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Counting of votes for 243-Bihar Assembly election started at 8am on Tuesday and will continue till late evening.

Briefing reporters in the national capital as the counting progressed in Bihar, EC officials said over 1 crore votes were counted till around 1.30 pm out of nearly 4.16 crore votes polled in the three-phase elections.

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The official said the counting has been “glitch-free” so far.

To ensure social distancing norms put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Commission had increased the number of polling stations from nearly 65,000 in the 2015 assembly polls to 1.06 lakh. 

Addressing a press conference, the EC said it has been clarified “time and again that EVMs are robust and tamper-proof. The Supreme Court upheld integrity of EVMs more than once.”

Deputy Election Commissioner Sudeep Jain said, “The EC had also offered EVM challenge in 2017. Integrity of EVMs is without any doubt and merits no further clarification.”

The EC added all postal ballots received till 8 am Tuesday will be taken up for counting.

Needless to say that there has been an absolutely glitch-free counting process so far. Slightly more than 1 crore votes have been counted in Bihar which means that there is significant ground to be covered yet: Election Commission of India (ECI)