Voter assistance booths in buildings with three or more polling stations

In response to a fresh directive by the EC,the state CEO will also prepare the electoral roll in an alphabetical order so as to enable both polling personnel and voters to easily locate the names in the roll.

The team of officials manning “voter assistance booths” will be provided copies of the list along with a complete set of the electoral roll to be used in the polling stations.

The official said that in single/double polling station buildings,no separate team of officials will be required to man “voter assistance booths”.

In such cases,the list of alphabetical electoral roll will be provided to the presiding officer for each polling station for easy identification of the voters,he added.

In another directive,the EC has said that agents of the political parties or the candidates will have to sit 200 metres away from a polling booth with one table and two chairs. On earlier occasions,the distance criterion was only 100 metres.

The political parties/ candidates will be allowed to provide only an umbrella like shelter to their agents and not a big shamiana as had been the practice earlier. The state CEO has been instructed to ensure that no big crowd gathers around the table manned by such agents.

According to the state CEO’s office,there are as many as 2,887 buildings with three or more polling stations across Gujarat,while the number of two-booth buildings is 7,543 and that of one-booth building is 15,922.

No political parties or their candidates will be allowed to appoint polling agents with criminal cases pending against them.

This time,the EC has also introduced an “entry pass” system for polling agents appointed by the political parties at each polling station.