ELECTORAL REFORMS

Oct. 29, 2019

On the recommendation of the Election Commission of India (ECI), the Central Government has amended the Rules to facilitate the process of postal ballot paper for Absentee voters of essential services, Senior citizens of more than 80 years and marked PwD electors.

Salient features of these amendments are as follows:

A concept of ‘absentee voter’ has been introduced and defined for the elections;
‘Absentee voter’ means a person belonging to such class of persons as may be notified, under clause (c) of section 60 of the Act, and who is employed in essential services as mentioned in the said notification, and includes an elector belonging to the class of senior citizen or persons with disability [rule 27 A (aa)];
‘Person with Disability’ means a person flagged as person with disability in the data base for the electoral roll;
‘Senior Citizen’ for the purpose of this Part means an elector belonging to the class of absentee voters and is above 80 years of age;
In case of an absentee voter, the application shall be made in Form 12D, and shall contain such particulars as specified therein, and shall be duly verified by the Nodal Officer for the absentee voter, other than senior citizen or persons with disability, which shall reach the Returning Officer within five days following the date of notification of election;
In the case of absentee voter, postal ballot paper shall be returned to the centre provided for recording of vote under sub-rule(3) of rule 27F, subject to any direction that may be issued by the Election Commission in this behalf.