Election Department receives 65016 applications for voter cards

Dharamshala, October 3, 2017: Himachal Pradesh election department received 65016 applications for making new photo identity cards during the special campaign organized between 16 to 30 September in the state. Out of these, 52,155 electors registered themselves by filling up farm-6 and most of them include electors in the age group of 18-19 years.

Additional Chief Electoral Officer DK Rattan said, "The department received 6251 applications for removal of names from the voter lists, 5703 for rectification and 907 for transfer of names from the assembly constituencies. He said there were 2365 Absent, Shifted and Dead (ASD) voters and their list had been prepared separately however, there names had not been removed from the electors list.”

Earlier electoral rolls (after special revision) have been published on September 15 and the total number of voters will be 49.05 lakh of which 24.98 lakh are male and 24.07 female. Around 1.25 lakh new voters have entered the list after summary revisions, out of which 40,567 are first-time voters.

The assembly elections in state are due in January and the announcement of the dates are expected any time.

Making some significant observations, the CEO said, “This time in Himachal Pradesh, all 7,516 polling stations of 68 Assembly constituencies in 12 districts will have coverage of VVPATs (paper trail) to ensure greater transparency in polling. Each voter will be encouraged to take advantage of the facility to check the vote cast by him, though he would not be entitled to carry the slip.”

The EC would also undertake a new experiment on a pilot basis: Randomly select one polling station in each constituency for the counting of VVPAT slips, which would be tallied with the votes polled when EVMs are sent for counting. Another first in the state will be the setting up of two all women polling stations in every constituency.