Provision of Postal Ballot for Elderly and People with Disabilities Issued

The Election Commission has come out with a set of new instructions that seeks to make the procedure to opt for postal ballot for people aged above 80 years of age and people with disabilities. For the postal ballot, form (Form- 12) would be delivered at the residence by the booth level officer (BLO) under his polling station.

Key Facts

• Postal ballot polling option has been given green signal for the upcoming Bihar elections
• If the person opts for postal ballot, then the BLO will collect the filled-in form 12-D from the house of the elector.
• The form would be collected within five days of the notification and deposit it with the returning officer (RO).
• For the polls to be held in a transparent manner, the returning officer would deploy polling teams to deliver and collect the postal ballot on a pre-informed dates and then deposit it with the RO.
• This postal ballot facility is different from the one that is extended to service voters. In this case, those who want to use the facility have to fill up a form.
• This decision has been taken in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

Background

The Law Ministry recently amended the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961. This extended the facility of postal ballots to people who are unable to cast their vote because of their service conditions. Features of these amendments includes:

1. Concept of an absentee voter has been introduced for the elections. Absentee voters means a person belonging to class of persons as notified under section 60 of the Act and who is employed in essential services.
2. The notification define the Person with disability as the Person who have been mentioned as person with disability in the database of electoral roll.
3. Senior citizen means an elector above the age of 80 years.

Who is a Booth Level Officer (BLO)

BLO is a Government or Semi Government or PSU or a Local body Official, who is familiar with the local electors. BLO resides in the same polling area. He is a representative of Election Commission of India at the polling station area level. He or She plays a role of maintaining an error-free and updated electoral roll by collecting the actual field information of the polling area. He or she is appointed under Section 13B(2) of Representation of People Act 1950 by the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO).

Who is a Retuning Officer (RO)?

The returning officer is responsible for the conduct of elections as per the Representation of the People Act, 1951. It is the statutory authority to conduct the polling and counting process. He decide the validity of ballot paper. The decision taken by RO in regard to ballot paper can not be over ruled by the election commission. An assistant returning officers (ARO) is also provided to assist the returning officer in the performance of his functions. RO and ARO are selected for each assembly and parliamentary constituency.