The need to create awareness about registration of new voters in the 18 to 21 years age group has arisen with a huge gap between population-based projections of the voters that should have been and the actual number.
The drive to register young voters in Visakhapatnam mainly focussed on youth and college students as part of the Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP), mandated by the Election Commission.
"Carried out in September and October, it resulted in a total of 96,000 new registrations," Joint Collector and nodal officer for SVEEP G. Srijana told The Hindu.
The new voter enrolment has been achieved with the involvement of electoral registration officers of the rank of Deputy Collectors and Deputy Electoral Registration Officers of the rank of Tehsildars. Registration centres have been organised at colleges by setting up kiosks.
The Joint Collector organised a meeting with principals of the colleges under Andhra University and engineering colleges and real-time training in registration given to them.
The success of the exercise could be measured from the fact that the number of new registrations that was at 30,000 on October 1 shot up to 96,000 by the end of the month. Majority of them, including the 54,000 registered online, are youth in the targeted age group of 18 to 21 years, Ms. Srijana says. The task was achieved with facilitation by the administrative machinery by setting up kiosks. Even when forms are filled up, the uploading was done online officially.
The number could have gone up further but for the posting of the officials in the district on cyclone relief responsibilities in the Titli-hit Srikakulam district. With their return now, the campaign will resume and it will include the Agency area where the new registrations are less.
‘Missing’ votes
At a meeting with GAD secretary N. Srikant as observer sent by the Chief Electoral Officer in September, representatives of political parties alleged that 90,000 votes had been deleted in the district. Subsequently, a door-to-door verification was carried out and canvassing done asking voters to register again, the Joint Collector said. Besides online applications, they were given forms to be filled for uploading by officials later.
In tribal areas
Registrations have been taken up in weekly markets in tribal areas. This time the campaign will be aggressive and more structured, Ms. Srijana says. The weekly markets in the tribal areas where large number of tribal people gather will be utilised for spot registrations. Consistent campaign on registration will be taken up in successive weeks to register more voters. Ms. Srijana, however, says measurability in terms of registration rather than visibility would be given priority in conducting the campaign.
