The State Election Commission has announced a 45-day Electors Verification Programme (EVP) starting from Sunday (September 1) during which voters can verify and authenticate their existing details on the electoral rolls and get their names included, deleted or corrected.
After the verification process, the commission will publish the draft electoral rolls on October 15 and start the special summary revision, which will go on till January 8. Any citizen who has crossed 18 years as on January 1, 2020, can also enrol during the summary revision. The commission will organise two-day special enrolment drives from November 2 to November 3 and November 9 to November 10.
Giving the details on Saturday, Sanjiv Kumar, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) for Karnataka, said the EVP was being undertaken following several complaints about discrepancies received during the parliamentary election. “There is a need for correcting and authenticating demographic details and images for all electors in the rolls on a campaign mode,” he said.
People can verify details through “Voter Helpline” mobile application, National Voters’ Service Portal, by visiting Common Service Centres (CSCs) in their vicinity, and by submitting hard copies of filled-in forms to the Electoral Registration Officer through their booth-level officers. PwD (People with Disabilities) voters can call voter helpline 1950 seeking facilitation, Mr. Kumar explained. People can visit Bapuji Kendras located in gram panchayat offices and Atal Janashree Kendras of the Revenue Department. “People can verify their name, photo, date of birth, father’s name, and address. If every detail is correct, they can mark it as verified. If any detail needs correction, they can submit request in Form 8 along with a copy of identification documents approved by the Election Commission,” Mr. Kumar said.
Meanwhile, Booth-Level Officers (BLOs) will take up house-to-house verification from September 1 to 30. They will also verify information/details collected from people through crowdsourcing. “EVP to be taken up with the help of Systematic Voter Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) will facilitate cleansing of electoral rolls. It will help in identification of the dead, permanently shifted, name repetitions, and collection of forms for deletion,” he said.
The process will include standardisation of addresses, capturing of GIS location of the respective polling stations, exploration of alternative locations for polling stations, and update of age group-wise projected population details. The verification process will go on till October 15 and people can file claims and objections from then till November 30. Final electoral rolls will be published on January 8, Mr. Kumar explained.
Appealing to people to make use of the opportunity and get their names added, deleted or corrected, the CEO said the State as of now has 5,10,60,498 electors of which 10,19,550 are first-time voters.
EC to make deletion process elaborate
To ensure that there is no indiscriminate deletion of names in the electoral rolls, the Election Commission is all set to make the process of deletion comprehensive. “Unlike the earlier process of deleting names following the submission of Form 7 and through summary enquiry, we will henceforth publish a paper notification and also paste a notice on the door of the person’s house prior to deletion,” said Sanjiv Kumar, Chief Electoral Officer for Karnataka.
PVC cards for voters soon
The Election Commission is set to shift from laminated Electoral Photo Identity Cards to Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) cards. The commission is finalising tenders and will start issuing PVC cards shortly. “We are entering into an agreement with the Citizen Service centres and Bangalore One centres for printing and issuing the cards,” said Sanjiv Kumar, Chief Electoral Officer for Karnataka. He said the commission will take up a campaign to issue EPIC cards on National Voters’ Day observed on January 25.
