Vote discrepancy halts counting at JnU

Jagannath University’s Central Student Union (JnUCSU) election has run into trouble during vote counting following a peaceful polling process.

A discrepancy in a single vote has suspended the counting for over two hours as the authorities work to verify results.

“We have encountered a problem and are looking for a solution. We hope everyone will accept the resolution we propose,” Election Commissioner and law department Prof Md Shahidul Islam told bdnews24.com on Tuesday at 8:45pm.

Voting for the central student union and a hall student representative concluded at 4pm.

All ballot boxes were brought to the university’s central auditorium.

Counting of central union votes began at 6:30pm using six OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) machines.

However, the counting was halted after about 15 minutes due to overcrowding in the auditorium. Students and journalists were asked to leave, and counting resumed half an hour later.

Shortly after, the discrepancy was detected, forcing another pause at 7pm. The counting had not resumed by 9pm.

A member involved in the process told bdnews24.com that counting initially began with the votes from the geography and environment department.

At first, three machines were used to process the ballots. To verify the accuracy of this count, the same ballots were run through three other OMR machines.

However, a discrepancy in one vote was detected during this verification process, putting the election commission in a dilemma. Unable to determine why this happened, the vote counting was suspended.

Prof Shahidul said over the microphone at 9pm, “We are trying to adjust the counting for the second round. We will identify where the problem occurred and update everyone shortly.”