VOTE
FROM HOME FACILITY - POLITY
News:
All about the
vote-from-home facility in the Lok Sabha elections | Explained
What's
in the news?
●
The Election Commission of India (ECI)
has, for the first time in the history of the Lok Sabha elections, extended its
‘vote-from-home’ facility to Persons
with Disabilities (PwD) and senior citizens aged 85 and above.
Vote-from-Home:
Provisions
and Instructions of ECI:
●
Key to the process is Form 12D, which is a letter informing the Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) that the person may not be in a
position to go to the polling station to vote.
●
The form can be downloaded online from the
ECI website or collected from the office of the representative district officer
of a parliamentary constituency.
●
The form has to be filled and submitted
within five days of notification of the polling date.
●
Once filed, two polling officials,
accompanied by a videographer and a security person, will visit the elector’s
home and oversee the postal ballot voting process.
●
The voter will receive an intimation about
the date and approximate time of visit via SMS or through post. The home voting
option will be attempted twice.
●
The polling team will schedule a second visit if the elector fails to be
at the given address during the first visit.
●
If the voter is absent on the second
visit, “a further visit will not be entertained.” The voter will subsequently
be ineligible to vote both at polling booths and through the home voting
scheme.
Eligible
Persons:
●
People
aged 85 and above.
●
Persons
with Disabilities - The disability shall not be less than
40% of the prescribed handicap and certified by the certifying authority.
●
Mediapersons
covering ‘polling day activities’ - Carrying authorisation
letters from the Election Commission.
●
Workers
from essential services - Services such as metros, railways
and health care.
●
Service
Voters - Personnel of the armed forces posted away from
their hometowns, Central Armed Police Forces personnel deployed away from home
and those on poll duty.
Go
back to basics:
Backdrop
of Vote-from-Home:
●
It was previously tried out during
Assembly elections in select regions, allowing PwD, senior citizens and people affected by Covid-19 to vote from home.
●
In the past 11 Assembly elections, the scheme has helped almost 3.30 lakh
people with disabilities and electors above 80 years.
●
In the Karnataka Assembly Elections last
year, almost one lakh PwD and older electors, out of the total 18 lakh, had
used the home voting postal ballot method.