In a first in the State, the service voters would cast votes through the electronically transmitted postal ballot papers (ETPBP) during the upcoming Tharali Assembly by-election in Chamoli district slated on May 28.
To ensure that the service voters cast votes in the by-poll, ETPBPs would be sent to 3277 service voters in time which they would open by the e-pin passwords.
The nodal officer in charge of distribution of the postal ballot papers Narendra Yadav said on Saturday that the e-postal ballots would be sent to the service voters by the returning officers of the Tharali by-poll after the withdrawal of the nomination process is over.
He further said that the postal ballot papers must be returned within the stipulated time. “Envelops would be sent to them to help them return the ballot papers in time. What they would do is to open the e-postal ballots, cast vote and return them.
They would put the ballot papers in 13B envelops, the declaration of the voters would be kept in 13D envelops, both would be kept in 13 C envelops and they would be sent to the returning officers concerned. The envelops after they are returned would be scanned by a machine during the counting of votes,” he added.
Notably, earlier, such ballot papers used to be sent to the service voters by postal mail and they used to be returned by the same, a process which was time consuming and cumbersome.
“Things are being simplified for them through use of technology,” Yadav said.