The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Common photo rolls for all elections soon in Kerala

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 12, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Common photo rolls for all elections soon in Kerala

N.J. Nair

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Common photo electoral rolls will soon come into force for Lok Sabha, Assembly and local self-government (LSGI) elections in the State. This is expected to put an end to the travails of the public in getting enrolled in the dual voters’ list.

The State Election Commission (SEC) has successfully experimented new electoral rolls with photos of voters during the Mattannur municipal elections held in September. This is sought to be replicated in all elections to be held in the State henceforth.

Voters’ list with booth and ward-wise split-up was adapted from the list prepared by the Central Election Commission (CEC) based on the statistics on January 1 last year. The list prepared by the SEC is used for civic polls and the rolls, with photos of the voters compiled by the CEC, for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. As per the existing system, the SEC adapts the rolls of the CEC and updates them from time to time for each civic elections. The national conference of the State Election Commissioners held at Uttarkhand in June had decided in principle to have a common list for all elections. Kerala took the lead by making the first successful attempt.

Since ward-level details are essential for civic elections, it was decided to add additional fields to the database of the CEC for preparing the new list. One more field will be added to the database for preparing the new list in corporation and municipal areas while two fields will be added in panchayat areas. This will enable the inclusion of the names of the panchayats as well as wards.

This was considered as a practical solution to the problems being faced by the voters in enrolling their names in both the lists in time. Complaints were aplenty that the names of those who figured in the CEC list had not found a place in the State list. Similar discrepancies were detected in the SEC list and many had lost a chance to vote in the elections. The new combined list is expected to be an answer to all such problems.

The new list will have more micro-level details, including the names of each ward

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