Karnataka - Bidar   

Many graduates cast invalid votes

Staff Correspondent

Bidar: Even unschooled voters have learnt to use the electronic voting machines. But some graduate voters are yet to learn how to cast valid votes.

There were 3,728 invalid votes of the 36,190 votes cast in the North-East Graduates Constituency on Monday. Over 10 per cent of the voters could not express their choice clearly.

What makes these people lose a chance to elect people of their choice? This is the question doing the rounds.

The graduates' representative in the Legislative Council is elected by preferential voting by single transferable vote.

Ballot papers and not EVMs are used in this. Voters are supposed to mark the Indo-Arabic numerals first, second, third and so on to express their preferences.

The State Election Commission has stipulated that roman numerals should not be used.

Counting officials in Bidar said that many voters had failed to follow the simple method of marking numerals before the names of candidates. "Some of them had signed their name in the place allotted for writing numerals. Some had put a tick mark, some wrote yes. Some wrote one, two or three to express their choice," said an officer on counting duty. The low turnout of 40 per cent in the elections has come as a surprise.

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Many graduates cast invalid votes

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