No e-voting, only ballots for Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation polls
HYDERABAD: The State Election Commission (SEC) has dropped the idea of going for e-voting in the ensuing elections to Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). The commission feels returning officers (ROs) have not been sufficiently trained to ensure foolproof e-voting.
According to highly placed sources in the corporation, SEC indeed explored the option of e-voting. But it encountered a series of problems in executing the plan for the GHMC polls. The first requirement was that entire e-voting process had to be entrusted to one person (RO). There would be a major problem if he or she is not skilled enough. There also has to coordination between the computer operator at one end and the voter sitting at an unknown end. There could be loss of coordination among them. There were also fears of political parties influencing voters taking the e-path.
Officials felt that till an alternative foolproof mechanism is not built up, the State Election Commission should opt for elections will ballots, including postal ballots.
A senior election official said SEC will follow the norms it applied for Dubbak byelection with regard to postal ballots.
Further, elderly persons will be brought to polling stations with PPE kits after 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. to exercise their franchise.
In addition, counting will be at the designated counting centres in all 150 divisions. Though the counting process will be expedited at all 14 tables, it will be possible to declare the results only after 11 p.m. going by experience of GHMC elections held in 2002 using ballots.
The official said including police, over 1.5 lakh persons will participate in conduct of civic body elections both on polling and counting day. "GHMC officials, along with police, are identifying sensitive polling stations to avoid untoward incidents", he underlined.
The official said e-voting could be used only after the Election Commission of India provides a nod to the process. e-Voting will not be implemented even in the MLC polls from the graduates’ constituency, he added.
