Chennai: The elections for the All India Chess Federation (AICF) office bearers has been scheduled for January 4, 2021.
The detailed poll schedule was communicated to the people concerned by the Madras High Court appointed Election Officer K.Kannan, a retired Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court.
As per the poll schedule sent by Kannan, the voting will take place on January 4, between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. and the results will be declared on the same evening.
"Vote shall be cast only for the number of vacancies arising for each post," states the poll schedule.
As per the poll schedule the last date for filing of nominations will be December 22-24, scrutiny of nominations will be held on December 26, the last date for withdrawal of nominations is December 27-29 and the publication of final list of contestants will be on December 30.
The members of AICF electoral college will have to register online through a secure portal on December 21.
Invites will be sent collectively by the Election Officer that will automatically direct parties to register.
The AICF is split into two factions - one headed by former President P.R. Venketrama Raja and the other by Secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan.
As per a recent Madras High Court order, Chauhan is the Secretary only for signing AICF cheques.
Kannan had earlier told the two factions that the poll will be held online with digital facial recognition and other authentication methods would be adopted during electronic voting.
He had said a renowned computer company has been called to provide four steps to secure the three-stage process to ensure the integrity of the online process.
As per his earlier order on the objections to the electoral college, Kannan had said: "All the users must register themselves on the election portal; they must mandatorily give their respective mobile phone numbers as part of registration; they must also register their photograph with their face and with a white background (must be taken while they register with the portal)."
"They must also register with a four or a six-digit secret pin; three-step authentication mechanism is as follows - each member would be given a unique username and password (with strong password policies) to login to the portal; during the election process, before they cast their ballot, an OTP must be sent to the registered mobile number to authenticate the login of each member; members must also enter the secret pin which they captured during registration; members will be asked to take their photographs before casting their votes. A facial recognition algorithm must validate and authenticate them."
As per the order, a person could cast his/her vote if and only if all the above mentioned steps are completed, therefore ensuring the authenticity of the vote.
There must be a help function to hold any person who faces problem during registration, photographing before the computer camera or while casting the vote.
"This in my view is sufficient to ensure a secure environment for identifying the candidates and for transmission of their votes by electronic process which will be gathered at the receiving end, votes counted and the results announced," the order said.
Kannan did not name the computer firm's name in the order for the purpose of security.
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