The Hindu : Drop of 8.5 lakh voters in State

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 22, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Drop of 8.5 lakh voters in State

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, FEB. 21. The number of voters in the State has dropped by about 8.5 lakhs compared to the number of voters in the Assembly elections held in 2001. The drop is around 12 lakhs against the electorate of the previous Lok Sabha elections (1999).

According to the electoral rolls, revised with the reference date of January 1 this year, there are 2.08 crore voters in the State. This excludes service voters. (Revision has not yet been done in Thiruvalla Assembly constituency where a byelection was held recently).

In the 2001 Assembly elections, the electorate totalled 2.17 crores, including service voters who numbered 47,150.

The Chief Electoral Officer, P.J. Thomas, told The Hindu that he expected the number of voters to go up by about 2 lakhs in the coming days as voters can register between the notification of the elections and the opening of nominations. (The rolls could be changed up to the close of the nominations).

According to the criteria adopted by the Election Commission of India to check the reliability of electoral rolls, the electorate should be about 66 per cent of the total population. Currently, this is 65 per cent in Kerala. Yet, some persons may not be eligible to be on the list despite comprehensive revisions undertaken this year, official sources say.

The number of polling stations in the State is being brought down by about 2,500 this time against their number in 2001 as introduction of electronic voting machines facilitates accommodation of more voters.

While the norm earlier was up to 1,000 voters per station, now it is up to 1,500 voters per station. Accordingly, only 20,333 polling stations are proposed to be set up this time. In 1999, there were 23,007 polling stations.

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