Remote voting: On postal ballot for NRIs
- November 5, 2022
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
Remote voting: On postal ballot for NRIs
Subject :Polity
Context :
- India has the largest diaspora population, with nearly 1.35 crore non-resident Indians spread across the globe.
- They work in another country thus they miss out on voting in India.
- Currently, the Election Commission of India (ECI) allows enrolled overseas citizens to vote in person at the polling station in the constituency where the person is registered as an overseas elector.
- So if you want to vote you have to come in person and vote. This is a disincentive. For eg. in the 2019 Lok Sabha election — only 25,606 came forward to vote out of 99,844 registered elector.
- In 2014, a committee constituted by the ECI to probe methods to enable overseas voters’ concluded that proxy voting was the most viable, though some political parties objected to the idea.
- In 2020, the ECI approached the Government to permit NRIs to vote via postal ballots, similar to the system already used by service voters, i.e., the Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS), which allows registering their mandate on a downloaded ETPB and sending it to the returning officer of the constituency.
What is postal voting :
Postal voting is voting in an election where ballot papers are distributed to electors (and typically returned) by post, in contrast to electors voting in person at a polling station or electronically via an electronic voting system.
Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS)
The Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS) is a secured system for Service Voters to cast their vote on an electronically received postal ballot, from anywhere outside their constituency, thus reducing the chances of losing the voting opportunity.
It was developed for the convenience of Service voters
Who is a Service Voter?
Persons working in Central Forces under Arms Act and Government officials deployed in Embassies outside the country are classified as Service Voters and are provisioned for online enrolment.