The Hindu : National : Election Commission plans electoral rolls with photos of voters

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 31, 2004

National

National

Election Commission plans electoral rolls with photos of voters

NEW DELHI, MAY 30. Bogus voting and impersonation may soon be things of the past as Election Commission is now coming out with electoral rolls that would also have the photo of the voter on it.

``To curb bogus voting and impersonation during polls, the Commission is now coming up with lists which would also have the photo of the voters on it,'' says Rajesh Aggarwal, Director-cum-Principal Secretary, Election Commission of India.

While the Election Commission plans to implement it in the whole of the country, work has already started in those assembly segments which would be going to polls later this year.

``There would be more correctness in the voters list and besides, it would also help in locating duplicates. Sometimes a voter's name is mentioned twice... it can check on that,'' he says.

``In our database, we have 75 per cent of the photos which are digitally available. They are being matched with the names and other details. The work for getting the rest of the photographs would begin soon,'' he says.

However, this step would bring up the costs of printing by 50 - 60 per cent. As of now, 50 names are printed on one electoral roll. But after the addition of the photos, only 30 names can be put on one page, says Aggarwal.

Another problem which the voters faced during these elections was that some of them had the photo identity cards, there name was not on the rolls. ``We are also trying to rectify this problem,'' he says.

The head of the computer division at EC, Aggarwal says, ``we have established the infrastructure. The EVMs and their success proved it. On the counting day, 50,000 pages were refreshed every two minutes.''

In 1999 elections, 200 fax machines were put up here and we received three-four lakh faxes. But this time it was literally paperless transmission, he says.

``The focus now is on internet based programming, and better connectivity at district levels,'' says Aggarwal.

Also, the stress would be on educating people, especially in remote areas about EVMs. The repolling at most places, especially in Bihar, was due to improper use of the machine, he says.

The issue would be taken up in the training programmes of election officers which are conducted from time to time, says Aggarwal.

PTI

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