EC proposes doing away with postal ballot option for poll workers

Voters on election duty should cast their ballot at a voter facilitation centre, instead of sending by post, says the committee

During the State Assembly elections in the past two years, over 50% of the ballots of election staff were sent via post. Representative Image. File | Photo Credit: G. Karthikeyan

The Election Commission last week wrote to the Law Ministry proposing that poll workers cast their ballot at voter facilitation centres set up for them instead of sending it via post, a move that would minimise the potential for misuse, an EC source said on Wednesday.

The commission, comprising Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey, decided during a meeting on September 16 to send the recommendation to the Law Ministry that the voters on election duty cast their votes at the facilitation centres only, the source said. The commission proposed amending Rule 18 of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 accordingly.

While they have the option of going to a voter facilitation centre, many poll workers choose to send in their votes via post and keep the postal ballots at their homes for a long time after completing their election duties, the source said.

The election workers have the option of sending their postal ballot to the returning officer by 8 a.m. on the counting day, even though the poll in their constituency may have been in the first phase of the polls, which can be a month prior to the date of counting.

The source said that during the State Assembly elections in the past two years, over 50% of the ballots of election staff in Goa, Kerala and Manipur, were sent via post. In the Uttarakhand elections this year, not even one election worker cast the ballot at the facilitation centre, the source said.

If implemented by the Law Ministry, the amendment would reduce the potential misuse of ballot papers. The voters on election duty could keep them at home as they were susceptible to undue influence by candidates or parties, the source said.

The poll workers are deployed at constituencies other than their own, as per the EC policy. As of now, they apply for postal ballots from their respective returning officers at the time of the pre-election training. The ROs then issue the ballots and set up facilitation centres for such voters so that they can cast their votes before being sent on election duty.