Election rules tweaked: No more postal votes via post

Kollam: To avoid malpractices during the polls, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has restricted using postal services for sending postal votes to the returning officer. Additionally, the voters won't receive ballot papers via post. 

Under the new rules, polling personnel will have to cast their votes at designated facilitation centres in their own constituencies. 

According to ECI, this change in the voting system is to avoid any kind of discrepancies on the part of political parties, including the collection of postal votes as well as forced public voting. 

So far, the ballot paper has been sent via post to voters as per the approval of those on election duty. It was also possible to vote and send it back by registered post. In this new system, the voters may cast their votes at select polling booths located in their own constituencies. The votes can be cast from the day the ballot papers are prepared to the day before the election. The voting process will be video recorded, and the representatives of every recognized political party may witness the same.

This alteration in the system will affect officials who work far away from their constituencies. The postal voting system will be at hand only for soldiers and trial convicts from now on.