Voters on election duty who cannot visit their home constituency may have to exercise their franchise at Voter Facilitation Centres, and not through postal ballot, to “minimise potential misuse of postal ballot facility for free, fair and transparent elections”, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has proposed, according to people familiar with the matter.
In their recommendation to the ministry of law & justice last week, chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar and election commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey also said the above proposal will require an amendment in Rule 18 of Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, the people cited above said.
Rule 18 deals with people entitled to vote by post, which includes service voters, voters on election duty and electors subjected to preventive detention.
Nearly a million polling stations are set up across the country during the national elections, with almost 10 million voters on election duty. Such voters include police personnel, polling officials and presiding officers among others who are involved in the election process.
As per ECI’s standard policy, voters on election duty are deployed at a constituency other than their home constituency to manage and supervise the polling process. Owing to this arrangement, such voters are unable to visit their home constituency and thus, allowed to vote via post.
“It has been observed in previous elections that voters on election duty who are provided postal ballot do not cast their vote at Voter Facilitation Centres but take their postal ballot with them, claiming they have time to cast postal ballot till 8 am of the counting day, as per Section 60 of Representation of the People Act, 1951 read with Rule 18 of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961,” one of the people cited above said on condition of anonymity.
{{/usCountry}}“It has been observed in previous elections that voters on election duty who are provided postal ballot do not cast their vote at Voter Facilitation Centres but take their postal ballot with them, claiming they have time to cast postal ballot till 8 am of the counting day, as per Section 60 of Representation of the People Act, 1951 read with Rule 18 of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961,” one of the people cited above said on condition of anonymity.
{{/usCountry}}As per current rules, the returning officers, at the time of training, may issue postal ballots and also set up facilitation centres for those on poll duty to enable them to cast their votes before they are dispatched for the allotted polling stations.
“The facilitation centre is equipped with all necessary arrangements for ensuring secret and transparent voting in presence of candidates or their representatives,” the person cited above said.
However, voters on election duty also have the option to send their postal ballot through “post to the returning officer so as to reach the returning officer before the hour fixed for the commencement of counting i.e, 8am of the counting day,” the person added.
Many such voters keep postal ballots at their homes for a long time after performing poll duty, as elections are normally held in staggered manner in order to manage logistics and requirements for forces, the person said.
Data shows that during the assembly elections in states like Goa, Kerala and Manipur in the last two years, “over 50% of postal ballots were received by post from the election duty staff”.
“In Uttarakhand (that went to the polls earlier this year), not even a single postal ballot was cast at the facilitation centre,” the person said.
The ECI’s proposal would “minimise the potential misuse of keeping ballot paper by the voters on election duty for a long time with them, which is highly susceptible to undue influence, threats, bribery and other unethical means by candidates or political parties”, the person added.