Officials inspect an electronic voting machine at the Kochi Corporation Commissioning Center in the city on December 3, 2025. Photo credit: THULASI KAKKAT
With less than a week left for the elections, the precinct election office at the civil station in Kakkanad is abuzz with activity. Election-related work began in July, starting with the first inspections of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) stored in the office. The process reached a crucial stage on Wednesday (December 3, 2025) with the commissioning of EVMs, making them ready for polls. The ballot papers were inserted into the EVMs as part of the commissioning work.
While the district election office has only six officials, nearly 30 officials from various departments at the civic station handle election-related duties almost round the clock, officials said.
The election wing’s first responsibilities included appointing Returning Officers (ROs) for the 111 local bodies in the district and imparting necessary training. There are a total of 116 ROs, including one additional officer for each of the three larger municipalities and two more for the Kochi Corporation. The renewal of the voters’ list was carried out in three stages before the elections, including hearings, complaints resolution and revision of the lists.
Electoral staff for all local bodies were deployed through the e-DROP web application developed by the National Information Centre. More than 12,000 election officials will be on duty at 3,021 polling stations in the district on election day.
Officials will be busy issuing ballot papers and distributing election materials for each station in the coming days. While applications for postal tickets were accepted at the district office until Wednesday, they could be submitted to the concerned ROs until December 6 at 5 p.m. Materials including EVMs will be distributed from 28 designated centres.
The officials’ duties will not end until the votes are counted on December 13. The survey work, coinciding with the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, has added to the workload of officials this time around.
“Revenue officials had to face a lot of difficulties as they were dealing with both SIR and election-related work this time. Despite the stress, preparations for the polls were done flawlessly,” said Sunil Mathew, Deputy Collector (Elections).
Published – 04 Dec 2025 01:26 IST
