Will mark deceased persons, repeats to ensure no vote is cast in their names, says SEC.
Devise a system to ensure that no bogus voting during the civic elections across the state, the Bombay high court asked the State Election Commission (SEC) on Tuesday.
“What mechanism are you [SEC] evolving within the parameters of law to prevent or avoid bogus voting?” asked a division bench of justice DD Sinha and justice VK Tahilramani, while hearing the petition of Vinod Talreja, a member of Konark Vikas Aghadi, which has now merged with Congress (I).
About the poll irregularities, Talreja’s advocate LM Acharya pointed out that in the electoral list prepared during the assembly elections, three sections of Ulhasnagar had 42,000 names of dead persons.
Also, 25,000 names were repeated in electoral lists in different wards, added Acharya.
This was when the high court observed that “the EC should ensure that none in the electorate votes in the names of the dead. Also, names found to have been repeated in electoral lists of different wards should not be misused.”
With this, the court asked the SEC to inform them by February 8 the mechanism devised to prevent bogus voting in such cases.
Acharya alleged that in spite of requesting the SEC to remove the names of the dead and the repeat cases, in September 2011, the commission took no corrective action. This, despite furnishing proofs like death-certificates, BMC records and other related documents. In fact, the same names found their way in both the provisional list released in December 2011 and the final list released in January 2012.
“Considering that Ulhasnagar has 78 wards with an average 6,000 voters per ward, if one counted the dead and repeated names they would add up to an average of 850 bogus or non-existent voters per ward,” added Acharya.
SEC counsel Sachindra Shetye, said it was too late to prepare a new list, with the elections at the door. “We will take the list of deceased and repeat names and put a mark against it, so that the returning officer can ensure that no vote is cast against it,” said Shetye.
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