HYDERABAD: The voters slip this time will have new features. Affixed with a photograph of the voter, they would be delivered at the doorstep of voters by December 1 by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) in Hyderabad District.
The slips will also have maps showing the route to the respective polling station. Hyderabad District Electoral Officer and GHMC commissioner M Dana Kishore said here on Saturday that instead of small photo voter slips, the voters will get big slip with snapshots of the polling station on Google Maps. The ECI aims at enhancing the effectiveness of the photo voter slips as an important instrument of voter facilitation and awareness. The ECI has decided to improve the design of the voters’ slip to make it more perceptible, informative and useful.
Briefing the media on the arrangements being made for the ensuing elections in Hyderabad, Dana Kishore said the snapshot of polling station’s Google Maps has been added on the reverse side of the voter slip to locate the polling station. Compared to 2014 polls, as many as 57 locations have been changed and new locations have come up and the snapshot of buildings will become handy for the voters.
The size, design and format of the photo voter slip would be improved substantially to enhance its utility and effectiveness in voter identification by increasing the size of the image, providing additional information along with polling station Nazri Naksha on the reverse of the slip and improvement in the quality of printing. The voter slip should be in the language in which electoral roll is published for that Assembly Constituency.
The ECI has laid special emphasis on the systematic and timely distribution of voter slips through BLOs, who will be issued strict instructions to hand over the slip to voters concerned only and not to any other person. The BLOs should also maintain a pre-printed register of voters and take the signatures, thumb impression of person to whom the voter slip is delivered.
After distribution of voter slips, ASD (Absent, Shifted, Deleted) list will be prepared by the BLOs.
16 central observers to visit Hyderabad
As many as 16 central observers will visit the city before the last date of filing of nominations to monitor the upcoming Assembly elections in Hyderabad district, said Hyderabad District Election officer, M Dana Kishore. Participating in the voter awareness campaign for senior citizens to increase the voting percentage, he said that of the 16, eight will be general observers while the rest will be expenditure observers. He said that despite high literacy rate in the city, the polling percentage has been less.
“For every 1,000 persons, 932 are voters in Hyderabad. Despite that, the polling percentage was less than 53 percent in 2014.” Additionally, in a survey, it was found that the voter turnout was less because some electors were not keen on waiting a long time and others did not want to walk a long way to cast their votes