The Election Commission of India (ECI or just EC) has made a number of arrangements for the counting of votes on Saturday, March 11, following the Assembly elections in Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Goa and Manipur. The poll panel had earlier announced that it had ordered strict security measures to ensure that counting goes on smoothly on Saturday.
Also read: Exit Poll 2017: National parties BJP and Congress are eclipsing regional rivals
Now, it has come to light that the EC has put in place several measures that will provide real-time details and analysis after counting begins and trends start to emerge on Saturday. Here are 11 things you need to know about the measures that the poll panel has put in place to help you understand the poll results better, according to a statement from the EC itself:
1. The EC has set up a "robust, fool-proof and secured infrastructure facility for disseminating trends and results" for polls in the five states through its "popular website www.eciresults.nic.in".
2. The website can also be accessed through www.eci.nic.in, which is the main official website of the EC.
3. The website "will start functioning from 8 am" on Saturday and "will show trends update continuously."
4. It will show the "number of votes secured by the candidates" in "round-wise" elections.
5. After the compilation of the whole data takes place, the website will show "Assembly constituency wise, political party wise and candidate wise trends."
6. The website has tracked hits "ranging from 36 million to 16 billion in a day in past, when trends were being disseminated."
7. The EC is presenting, for the first time, some interactive dashboards for public use. This will comprise of both data and analysis in its official website on March 12. It will include comparative analysis between 2012 and 2017.
8. The analysis will be presented in "user-friendly, clickable infographics."
9. Users can download this data, cross-tab, PDF and images for analysing the elections further at their end.
10. The users will get constituency analysis with respect to participation of electors (constituencies with more female electors, constituencies by slabs of voter turnout, turnout by poll days) and candidates (gender wise participants, winners and major competitors).
11. To assess performance of political parties, analysis on seats won by them, the percentage vote-share in the state and the profile (age and social category) of candidates fielded by them have been included.
