If you get a notice from the Election Commission in the near future, make sure you heed it. If not it may actually deprive you of your franchise.
If you get a notice from the Election Commission in the near future, make sure you heed it. If not it may actually deprive you of your franchise.
The state election department is preparing a photo-electoral roll in 52 out of 288 assembly constituencies in the state. This includes five assembly constituencies of the island city — Mumbadevi, Khetwadi, Opera House, Nagpada and Mazgaon.
The rolls are being prepared on the basis of the database already available from the 1994 photo-identity card drive. The department has retrieved as much voter data as possible and has sought to cover the remaining voters in a fresh identity drive that was concluded recently.
Culling information from the old database and from the drive, the draft photo-electoral rolls for the 52 constituencies have been prepared and are open to public scrutiny from July 10 to July 24. This list also includes voters whose pictures are not available either because they haven’t availed of the election I-card or because of a glitch.
In case a voter has missed out on the drive, or finds his photograph missing from the draft rolls, he can still go to the designated location, usually the central polling station of his constituency, to point out the discrepancy.
He may then be photographed and his picture inserted next to his name in the photo-electoral rolls. However, if he still gives it a miss, an individual notice will be sent to him through a special delivery as a last resort. The notice will ask the voter why his name shouldn’t be deleted in his continuing absence. If he doesn’t heed this notice either, his name could be struck off the rolls.
“Voters in whose photograph is not on the draft photo rolls should come forward and tell us. In case they don’t, they should take note of the notice or else their names will be deleted from the rolls,’’ says chief electoral officer UPS Madan.
Election rules empower the electoral registration officer (ERO) of every constituency to take the call on deletion of such names that cannot be ascertained (see box). “The election department will follow this procedure for every picture that’s missing from the photo rolls,’’ says Madan. “It’s up to the ERO thereafter to give any more notices but this is the procedure.’’
The election identity drive has already covered over 50 per cent of the electorate. “We are seeking the residual voters who haven’t been covered by any of our campaigns so far,’’ says Madan.
The decision to strike out a voter’s name whose picture is not available and who does not respond is dire but Madan says it cannot be helped. “This rule is being followed in all states that have prepared photo-electoral rolls,” he says.
In case the notice can’t be served on the voter because of his absence from home or for some reason, the normal procedure is to do a panchnama followed by pasting of the notice on the door of the house of the voter.
The EC has asked all states to publish photo-electoral rolls by end-2008.
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