NEW DELHI : Expressing concern over poor revision of electoral rolls of service voters, including armed forces personnel, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi today urged ministries to appoint nodal officers so that more and more such personnel can exercise their democratic right.
He also urged all stakeholders, including the Defence and the Home ministries, not to indulge in blame game and work together to ensure that the newly-developed delivery of postal ballots to service voters through electronic means can be improved.
“We are working with an open mind to improve the system,” he said.
He said “naysayers” who have raised concerns about the e-ballot system are being addressed by the IT experts so that a fool-proof technology is in place.
Issues like hacking of one-time passwords (OTP) meant for a service voter to download the postal ballot have been raised by people sceptical of the new system.
Zaidi said the e-ballot system will be “escalated” in the coming days ahead of assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa to be held early next year.
Addressing a seminar of stakeholders on the e-ballot system introduced in October, the CEC said the electoral rolls relating to service voters is “not satisfactory” and “not updated”.
He said out of nearly 25 lakh personnel of armed forces and central and state police organisations, some 14 lakh are service voters.
Service voters consist of armed police forces of the central government, other forces subject to the provisions of the Army Act, armed forces of a state serving outside that state, and those employed under the government of India in a post outside India.
Personnel posted in peace stations can also enrol themselves as regular voters and such people are then not included in electoral rolls meant for service voters.
Zaidi said he has written to External Affairs, Home and Defence ministers requesting them to appoint nodal officers in their respective ministries so that they can regularly interact with the election machinery to help more and more service voters, posted at far off places, cast their vote through postal ballot.
Speaking on the occasion, Army’s Adjutant General Lt Gen
Rakesh Sharma flagged a variety of issues dealing with practical problems relating to postal ballot.
He said the OTP should be provided at the unit level and not to soldiers because in far-flung areas there are no mobile connections and a service voter will not get it without a proper mobile connection.
He said there are logistical difficulties in sending the envelope prescribed by the EC to the service voter to send his postal ballot to the concerned returning officer.
He said allowing use of locally-procured envelopes is one of the solutions.
He said the Army is working overtime to correct the service voters’ electoral rolls from the scratch.
Three out of four service voters in Puducherry’s Nellithope assembly constituency used the e-ballot to cast their votes in November 19 bypoll. The new system was used as a pilot project in the state.
Accepting a long-pending demand, government has amended electoral rules to allow service voters, including Armed Forces personnel, to get their postal ballot through electronic means to save valuable time.
This would mean that service voters, including personnel from armed forces, can now download the blank post ballot sent to them electronically, mark their preference and post the filled-up ballot back to their respective returning officers.
This would cut short the delay experienced in the present system of two-way transmission of ballot paper by the postal services.
Two-way electronic transmission has not been recommended by the Election Commission for security and secrecy reasons. (AGENCIES)
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