Mock poll to start from 5.30 am on April 23

A mock poll is always conducted 1 hour before the scheduled time of polling which is 7 AM, but this time in Belagavi as there are 57 contesting candidates and 4 Ballot units will have to connect to each other the Election commission has asked the mock poll to be held 90 minutes before the commencement, which means the mock poll will start at 5.30 AM at all the polling booths in Belagavi Parliamentary constituency.

What is Mock Poll?
Polling agents of at least two candidates should be present at the time of Mock Poll. However, if polling agents of at least two candidates are not present, the Presiding Officer may wait for 15 more minutes before conducting the mock poll and if the agents still do not come, then the Presiding Officer may go ahead and start the mock poll.

During the Mock poll, the Ballot Unit (s) should be placed in the Voting Compartment and Control Unit on the table of the Presiding/Polling Officer who will operate the Control Unit. At least two polling officers with the polling agents should be present in the Voting Compartment to watch the polling agents operating on the Ballot Unit and to keep a record of the votes cast and tally the polled votes.

The mock poll should be conducted with the polling agents voting at random for each of the contesting candidates. A total of at least 100 votes should be polled in the mock poll. The

polling officers present in the Voting Compartment should ensure that votes are recorded for each of the contesting candidates. After the recording of the minimum of 100 votes, the Presiding Officer will ascertain the result in the Control Unit in the presence of the Polling agents and confirm that the result is tallying with the votes polled in respect of each candidate. Thereafter, the Presiding Officer will prepare and sign the mock poll certificate in the prescribed format.

The Presiding Officers shall ensure that the data of the mock poll is deleted, without fail, before the official poll starts. This is a very critical step and this should be emphasized during training.

These proceedings should be videographed wherever videography arrangement has been made at a polling station.

If any Control Unit is replaced for any reason after the commencement of the poll, a mock poll should be conducted on the new Control Unit before it is put to use.

However, in this case, it would be sufficient to cast at least one vote each for each of the candidates. A new mock poll certificate should be recorded in such a case.