Youngsters attaining 18 years of age on or before January 1, 2014, or those who had already completed 18 years of age but had not enrolled their names in the voters’ list can enrol their names, and the existing voters wishing to delete their names or make changes in the electoral roll can do so till October 31, according to Collector L. Subramanian.
Addressing journalists after releasing the draft electoral roll for the district on Tuesday, he said there were 22,39,272 voters – 11,22,275 women, 11,16,942 men and 55 transgenders – in the district. The number of voters had decreased by 183 from 22,39,455 recorded on January 10, 2013. “The drop of 0.02 per cent in the number of voters is due to deaths, migration and so on,” he noted.
A total of 14,475 voters had been included and 14,658 deleted in the electoral roll since January 10. The draft electoral roll would be displayed soon at all polling booths and the offices of the Tahsildars and Revenue Divisional Officers.
The number of polling booths had been increased by 77, and there were 2,560 booths at 1,058 different locations. Restructuring of polling booths was done to make sure that each booth in urban areas did not have more than 1,400 voters and in rural areas not more than 1,200 voters.
Voters could approach the schools designated as polling booths during working days for verifying their particulars in the electoral roll. Applications required for inclusion and deletion of names and making other changes could be obtained from the heads of the schools on submission of residential address and proof of age. Completed applications must be submitted to Booth-Level Officers (BLOs).
The Collector said special camps would be conducted at polling booths on October 6, 20 and 27 (all Sundays) for issuing and receiving applications. The BLOs had been instructed to issue acknowledgement to every applicant and zonal officers in the cadre of Deputy Collector had been appointed to monitor the camps.
“People who had enrolled their names already but had not received the voter’s identity cards could obtain them free of cost. But those who had lost their cards must pay Rs.25 for duplicate cards,” he said.
Select private Internet browsing centres had been roped in to act as representatives of the Election Commission of India. The list of such centres would be released in a couple of days, and online applications received through such centres would be scrutinised by the BLOs and higher officials to prevent inclusion of fake voters, he noted.
He later issued free copies of the draft electoral roll to the representatives of recognised political parties who had been asked to appoint Booth-Level Agents (BLAs) to assist the BLOs in finalising the voters’ list. Party representatives urged the Collector to issue identity cards to the BLAs.
