THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Though None of The Above (NOTA) option has not been incorporated in the upcoming local body election, voters in three-tier panchayats, where Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are set to be used for the first time, can exercise that option, though in an indirect manner.
To understand how the concept works, one has to get an idea of the special type of EVM which will be used for election to three-tier panchayats.
Multi-post EVMs, as they are called, consist of three ballot units - one each for gram panchayat, block panchayat and district panchayat.
Multi-post EVMs also have the option of ‘End Button’ which is accessible to the voter.
The ‘End Button’ is located at the end of the third ballot unit (for district panchayat). Voters can use this option to exit the voting process after casting votes to any local body of their choice. While the vote cast will be considered as valid, the others will be accounted separately as ‘under-votes’.
‘Undervote’ is not applicable in election to Municipalities and Corporations where a single vote is cast using single-post EVMs.
‘Undervote’ a Euphemism
The votes which have not been cast by the voter for a particular local body will be reflected separately under a category called ‘Undervote’. For instance, if a person castes votes only for gram panchayat, then his vote will be accounted for only in that local body, while the other two will be reflected in the ‘Undervote’ category.
According to State Election Commissioner K Sasidharan Nair, if a voter presses the ‘End’ button without voting for a particular local body, the ‘undervote’ thereby generated will be reflected in the same way as ‘NOTA’ is in the election statistics. “Along with the total number of valid votes, each booth also will maintain a record of ‘undervotes’,” the Election Commissioner said.
In a bid to create awareness among the voters, the State Election Commission will launch massive campaigns over the next few weeks.
Such campaigns will be focussed more on rural areas as it is for the first time that rural voters will be using Multi-post voting machines.
Besides awareness programmes, polling officials in each booth will also inform the voter on how to use the Multi-post EVMs correctly and also explain the concept of ‘undervote’.