No question of revealing of secrecy of employees using postal ballots: CEO

Chandigarh, April 26, 2014: The Punjab CEO VK Singh today rubbished a rumour that in Postal Ballot for employee, the secrecy of voting can be revealed and Government Employees were apprehensive of their safety.
Describing a complaint regarding this totally baseless, Singh said that Postal Ballot was a facility given to service voters and the staff on election duty who were unable to vote because they were serving in the Election duty. He said that in a Parliament election most of the staff was deployed on election duty within the same Parliamentary Constituency albeit they go for duty outside their home assembly Constituency. Thus majority of the staff who were working in the same Parliamentary Constituency get the Election Duty Certificates (EDC) through which they cast vote on the polling booth on which they are on election duty on the Polling day itself.
He further said that, however,  a limited number of staff on election duty outside the Parliament constituency were issued Postal Ballot on their request in the prescribed form. They can either cast their ballot through PB Facilitation Centres established by District Electoral Officers at the training venues or by post. The date and time of such facilitation centre was informed to the Political candidates and arrangements were made so that they or their agents could witness the whole process. He said that the Postal ballot was marked in a secret compartment and sealed in an envelope. This envelop has no mark of identification of the employee. Thereafter a declaration by the elector was to be got signed from the Magistrate for which facility was made at the venue. Then both the declaration and sealed envelope containing postal ballot were further sealed in 2nd envelope before dropping it in the Box. At the end the box was opened and all the envelopes (which further contain a declaration and sealed envelope containing postal ballot) were segregated in presence of political parties / candidates, he added.
He informed that all postal ballots pertaining to a particular constituency were again sealed in a packet and sent to returning officer through special messenger. Alternatively one can send his/her postal ballot through post. They could mark their preference on postal ballot and seal it in an envelope. Then put this envelope along with declaration in another envelope and send to the returning officer through Post. The returning officer makes special arrangement with the POST department to deliver the postal ballots at 3 pm every day. He informs such time to candidates to remain present everyday. The postal ballots were put in post box kept in his office. Then he takes out all the envelopes in front of all candidates and makes entries in daily registers, obtains signature of candidates or their agents present in the register. He keeps all such postal ballots received in a special strong room. These postal ballots were taken to the counting centre on the day of counting from such strong room.  All the postal ballots received till the time of counting shall be counted.
He further said that on the counting day, all the outer envelopes are opened first, and then the declarations scrutinized. Inner envelope containing postal ballot was not opened at this stage. If it was in order then declarations were kept separately and the inner envelopes (containing postal ballot paper) were kept separately, so that identity of elector was not compromised. Once all declarations were disposed off they were kept in a separate envelope, then only inner envelopes were opened. He clarified that there was no identity mark on the postal ballot or its envelope so that the secrecy of voting was not disturbed at any stage. Political parties or candidates were associated with all these processes.  The whole process was robust and transparent. Hence no body should have any misgivings about it, he added.