EC to introduce new app feature to inform voters of poll booth rush

THE STATE Election Commission (SEC) has been working on adding a new feature to the ‘Nigam Chunav Chandigarh’ mobile application. This feature will tell users about the numbers of voters standing in queues at the polling booths as well as available time slots to minimise waiting times. “The need of feature arose in the view of the increasing cases of Covid and the new variant.

We were instructed to ensure social distancing. Our IT experts are working to make this feature available soon. There are apprehensions that due to the Covid-voters might not turn up. We want to provide maximum facility to the voters”, a senior SEC official said. In the last two consecutive MC elections, the voter turnout was recorded at around 59 per cent.

Meanwhile, for the first time, the SEC has hired three additional expenditure observers from Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to calculate the submitted expenditure expenses of political parties and independent candidates in the civic body polls. Once the elections are over, the observers will submit their findings to the SEC within 15 days.

K Bhandari, OSD to the state election commission, said, “We have been working on various fronts to encourage 100 per cent voting. The new feature will assist people to ascertain the number of voters present in queues.”