The Election Commission of India, for the first time has introduced the ‘vote from home’ initiative in Karnataka Assembly elections for a selected group of voters. Elderly voters above 80 years of age and persons with disabilities (PwDs) can vote from the comfort of their homes if they are unable to go out to exercise their franchise.
The Vote from Home (VFH) exercise will be carried out through ballot papers across the state from Saturday, April 29 and will end on May 6.
Police personnel and officials who are on election duty will also be allowed to cast their votes through the ballots from today. The Election Commission is preparing to give ballots to 9,200 people in Bengaluru. District Election Officer Tushar Girinath told media persons that they have obtained permission for senior citizens and specially-abled people. Along with Form 12D, an official from the election commission will visit the homes of voters and they will be accompanied by a local police person and videographer as proof of fair voting.
Last month, the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced that it has introduced a vote-from-home (VFH) facility for the 12.15 lakh people aged above 80 (including 16,976 centenarians) and 5.55 lakh benchmarked PwDs in the Assembly elections in the state. According to the data given by ECI, the state has a total of 5.21 crore voters, including 2.59 women voters.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar in a press conference stated, “For the first time, the EC will provide this facility. Our teams will go to the homes of those who desire to vote from their home with a form 12D (which will be available within five days of the election notification) and facilitate the exercise of their franchise.”
CEC also mentioned that at the polling station, senior citizens and PwDs would be given facilities of wheelchairs, priority in voting, pick up and drop and a dedicated parking facility. A mobile Saksham PwD application has been also developed to facilitate services at polling stations and the Braille ballot facility for the visually impaired.
As many as 58,282 polling stations will be set up in the 224 constituencies for the voting day on May 10 and the average number of voters per polling station is 883. The results will be declared on May 13.
The VFH was also conducted previously in the Assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
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