‘Home voting’ for elderly, disabled kicks off in Kangra-Chamba parliamentary constituency

Raghav Guleria

Dharamsala, May 22

The Election Commission has set up 151 teams to help the elderly and disabled cast their vote from the comfort of their homes in the Kangra-Chamba parliamentary constituency.

Himachal Pradesh will vote on June 1 for the Lok Sabha elections.

District Election Officer (DEO) Hemraj Bairwa told The Tribune that a majority of these voters are the ones who would have otherwise missed the opportunity to exercise their franchise had this facility not been there.

“Voters above 85 years and those with over 40 per cent disability can cast their vote from home. Special mobile teams visit their homes for the completion of the voting process with full privacy. A total of 10,890 voters in the Kangra-Chamba parliamentary constituency have chosen to vote from home. This door-to-door voting process will be completed by May 26,” he added.

The DEO added that the administration was committed to ensuring easy voting for voters.

According to the guidelines of the Election Commission, full privacy is being maintained while voting at home. Videography of the entire process of voting by mobile polling teams is also being done.

The team

A mobile voting team comprises voting officers, micro supervisors, videographers, sector officers, security personnel and BLOs of respective voting centre. The DEO said the teams had been instructed to share the lists and schedule of voting from home in the area concerned with candidates contesting the election. The teams will be equipped with postal ballots, all necessary forms, voting compartments and ballot boxes.

The process

Bairwa said voters, who opted for ‘Vote at Home’, were notified by a polling team before visiting them. If any voter is not at home for the first time, the team would visited again. If unavailable for the second time, the voter won’t be able to vote.

Instructing officials to encourage essential services employees to cast their vote, the DEO said, “Postal polling stations will be built for employees of departments providing essential services. They can exercise their franchise between May 26 to 28 by going to these centres established at their workplace.”