Postal ballot facilities for Absentee voters

News:Election Commission of India has started working on detailed guidelines 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.

Facts:

About the guidelines:

• EC has defined absentee voter as a person belonging to such class of persons as may be notified under clause(c) of section 60 of the Representation of the People Act,1951.
• Such absentee voters include (a)Persons employed in essential services such as railways, state transport among others (b)Persons with Disabilities(PwD) and (c)Senior citizens.
• Person with Disability means a person flagged as person with disability in the database for the electoral roll.
• Senior citizen means an elector belonging to the class of absentee voters and is above 80 years of age.

How can these people vote?

• People under these new categories can choose to vote through postal ballot by filling up Form 12D and submitting it to the nodal officer within five days of notification of an election.
• These votes will be registered at a special centre specified by the Election Commission(EC).

Additional information:

About Election Commission: 

• The Election Commission of India is an autonomous constitutional authority responsible for administering election processes in India.
• The body administers elections to the Lok Sabha and state Legislative Assemblies in India, and the offices of the President and Vice President in the country.
• EC operates under the authority of the Constitution as per Article 324, and subsequently enacted Representation of the People Act.

About Representation of the People(RP) Act,1951:

• The Representation of the People Act,1951 is an act of Parliament of India.
• The act provides (a)the conduct of elections of the Houses of Parliament and the House of the Legislature of each State (b)the qualifications and disqualifications for membership of those Houses and (c)the corrupt practices,decisions,doubts and disputes arising in connection with such elections.