3 min readPuneMay 13, 2024 08:07 AM IST
First published on: May 13, 2024 at 07:11 AM IST
A government teacher from Bhor in the Baramati constituency didn’t cast her vote in phase 3 of the Lok Sabha elections. She was on election duty on the day and had not filled form 12A, which is to be filled if a voter on election duty wishes to vote in person at an election in the constituency. On the condition of anonymity she said, “Only the presiding officer at our polling booth had filled out the form, no one else did. It is partly our mistake, but I feel the procedure is tedious and can be made simpler and taken online. It is easy to fill out forms online these days, it will help increase the voting percentage. The ratio of voters and non-voters is likely to be the same across polling officers at different polling booths”.
There are two options available for those on election duty to cast their vote. If the person is on duty in the same constituency where they are enrolled as an elector, they are given an “Election Duty Certificate” (EDC), which entitles him to cast his vote in another polling station of the same constituency where he is on election duty. If on the other hand, the person is on duty in some constituency other than the one in which he is enrolled as an elector, he is entitled to vote by Postal Ballot (PB).
In Pune district, 78,000 polling officers and security staff were deployed across 8,383 polling stations.
But some teachers on polling duty are facing problems even after filling out form 12A. A teacher from Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar said, “There are six polling officers who got trained with me here along with a big team. We had filled out the forms with our names and all the required details, but now our names are not in the voter’s list and we are being told we can’t vote”.
On March 7, 2024, Election commission had sent out a notice along with detailed guidelines to ensure all provisions of Rule 20 of the conduct of Elections Rules are followed, so voters on election duty can cast their votes.
Deputy collector, Dadasaheb Gite, who is working as Assistant Returning Officer for the Shivaji Nagar assembly constituency cast his vote through postal ballot to Ahmednagar. He said, “Of all the applications I received for the postal ballot, 100 percent of them could cast their vote. For the EDC certificate, during their first training session we had attached form 12 and 12A with their election duty orders, we also reminded them to fill out the forms in the second training session. Those who had filled out the forms can cast their votes at the facilitation centre. We tried to not leave anyone behind. Those left are the ones who didn’t fill out the forms. But we did provide these forms to everyone in my assembly, I myself stapled them”.
In Pune district, 78,000 polling officers and security staff were deployed across 8,383 polling stations. 
Share
