Postal ballots for voters above 80 years
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If the COVID-19 pandemic persists, the 2021 Assembly polls within the State will see the introduction of postal ballots for voters above 80 years of age and differently-abled, along with electors who take a look at constructive for COVID-19 or are in quarantine, Teeka Ram Meena, Chief Electoral Officer (Kerala), has mentioned.
“’District Election Officers have been directed to identify voters who are 80-plus or people with disabilities (PwD) while updating the electoral rolls and make a separate list. Postal ballots will be optional for them. Once they are flagged, we will send them a form seeking their preference as to whether they would rather visit the polling booths to vote or use postal ballots,” Mr. Meena advised The Hindu.
However, the postal ballots for these voters is not going to be hand-delivered by groups led by Special Polling Officers (SPO) as achieved by the State Election Commission for the just-concluded native physique elections. “We will adopt the same methodology that is used for despatching postal ballots to the service voters. We will send the ballots by post and voters can return them by post to the returning officers,” he mentioned.
Electors who take a look at constructive for COVID-19 or are in quarantine can be allowed to forged their votes straight on the polling stations within the ultimate hour of polling. Additionally, each polling station may have a well being nodal officer to be sure that the COVID-19 pointers are complied with.
The State could require a minimum of 15,000 auxiliary polling cubicles for the 2021 Assembly elections if the COVID-19 state of affairs persists and the voter inhabitants per sales space must be restricted to 1,000.
“Creating auxiliary polling stations will be a major challenge as Election Commission of India (ECI) directives require us to locate the auxiliary stations in the same building as the main station as far as possible,” he mentioned. Consequently, this additionally calls for further manpower. The ECI had deployed 2.3 lakh personnel (excluding police personnel) for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in Kerala. This may go as much as 2.4 lakh.
Mr. Meena urged the general public to make use of the marketing campaign underway within the State to replace the voter rolls to incorporate their names or make corrections/deletions. The ECI had final up to date the rolls in 2019.
