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The Office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Keralam on Tuesday issued clear instructions to all District Election Officers (DEOs) and Returning Officers (ROs) regarding counting protocols, reiterating that strong rooms must not be opened under any circumstances for data-related procedures.
According to the press release, the CEO's office directed that neither strong rooms nor any unsealed rooms should be accessed for preparing Index Cards or verifying data in the ENCORE portal. All concerned officials have been instructed to strictly comply with the guidelines to ensure the integrity, transparency and security of the electoral process, the release stated. Earlier, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on April 18 reiterated strict compliance with legal frameworks for social media and AI-generated content in the 2026 state assembly elections in five states/UT, requiring the removal of unlawful content within three hours. The poll body noted that over 11,000 violative social media posts have been addressed since March 15, while 3,10,393 complaints were resolved via the C-Vigil app, highlighting a 96.01 per cent resolution rate within 100 minutes. "Political parties, candidates and campaign representatives are required to ensure that any synthetically generated or AI-altered content used for campaigning is clearly labelled as "AI-Generated", "Digitally Enhanced" or "Synthetic Content", along with disclosure of the originating entity, to maintain transparency and voter trust," said ECI in a release. Meanwhile, the Model Code of Conduct is in effect in Assam, Keralam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry since the announcement of the election schedule on March 15. The voting for Assam, Puducherry and Keralam took place on April 9. Tamil Nadu will go to the polls on April 23, with West Bengal's elections scheduled on April 23 and 29. The counting of votes for all poll-bound regions would take place on May 4. (ANI)
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