Postal Ballots and EDC Procedures

• VOTING BY PUBLIC SERVANTS ON ELECTION DUTY



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  1. Public servants appointed on election duty have the option of casting their votes through postal ballot system. For this purpose, they will have to apply to the Returning Officer in Form 12.
  2. The District Election Officer/Returning Officer will Issue the order of appointment appointing you as Presiding Officer in duplicate and along with this order the District Election Officer/Returning Officer will send you sufficient number of Forms 12 to enable you and the Polling Officers to apply for Postal Ballot Papers.
  3. You have to send the application form (Form 12) filled up immediately along with the duplicate copy of the order of appointment and submit it to the Returning Officer. Form 12 can also be submitted at the training classes for Polling Staff. After postal ballot is issued to the Polling Staff, the Returning Officer will make arrangement to facilitate their voting and depositing the ballot paper and the connected papers at the training centers itself, so that you do not have to post the ballot paper in post offices. However, there may be a few cases of female polling officials posted in their home constituencies (i.e. where they are enrolled as electors). In that event they may have been granted EDC (Election Duty Certificate). In their cases they will vote personally at the polling station where they are/would be posted on election duty. If for any reason, their posting on election duty/reserve duty is cancelled/not made after the entry EDC is made against their names in the marked copy of electoral roll, they should not be deprived of the right to exercise their vote. Such persons whether an election official or any other public servant on election duty, to whom an EDC has been issued, should be allowed to cast his/her vote at any polling station other than the one in which but for the issue of such election duty certificate he/should have been entitled to vote, including the polling station where he/she was originally posted for duty.
  4. Similarly, there may not be sufficient time left for you to record your vote and return it to the Returning Office well in time before counting. Applications from voters on election duty to vote by postal ballot are required by law to be made at least seven days or such shorter period as the Returning Officer may allow before the day of poll or the first day of the poll in the constituency.

  
  
  

• VOTING BY PROXY



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  1. Some voters can vote through proxies called, "Classified Service Voters", appointed by them. The Returning Officer will supply you with a list of the CSVs and this list of CSVs is to be treated as part of the marked copy of the electoral roll for your polling station.
  2. The proxy will record the vote on behalf of the CSV at the polling in the same manner as any other elector assigned to the polling station. The procedure of identification, etc. will be applicable in the case of proxy also just as in the case of other ordinary election. However, it may be noted that in the case of proxy, marking of indelible ink will be done on the middle finger of the left hand. The proxy will be entitled to vote on behalf of the CSV in addition to the vote that he may cast in his own name if he is registered elector in the constituency, at the polling station to which he has been normally assigned.
  3. In the case of proxy voters, the serial number of proxy must be enterered in the second column of the Register of Electors (Form 17A). However, for distinguishing the serial number from the serial numbers of electors in the main marked copy of the electoral roll, the letters 'PV' (for 'Proxy Voter') should be suffixed in bracket. For example, in the case of the proxy voter shown against serial number 1 of the sub-list of CSVs, the serial number to be entered in column 2 of Form 17A will be '1 (PV)', for the proxy voter at Sl. No.5 of the sub-list of CSVs, it will be '5 (PV)' and so on.