55,423 new voters in Meghalaya

SHILLONG: The final electoral roll has been published with the inclusion of 55,423 new voters who will exercise their franchise in the upcoming Lok Sabha election.  With the inclusion of names of these new voters, the total number of electorate in Meghalaya has gone up to 1,55,3028 — 783270 (male) and 783270 (female)  .  The revision  in the electoral roll was done in view of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections scheduled to take place later this year.
Among the 55423 newly-enrolled voters 29519 are male and 25904 are female.
Informing this here on Friday, Chief Electoral Officer P  Naik  said to chalk out strategies for the forthcoming Lok Sabha and District Council elections, a review meeting was  held on Thursday with the deputy commissioners and sub divisional officer.
According to Naik several issues regarding training and law and order situation were discussed in the meeting.
Reacting to a query, if Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) would be used in the elections, Naik stated that no direction was received from the Election Commission of India in this regard as of now.
However, electors in the the Lok Sabha can exercise the option to chose the ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) button in the Electronic Voting Machines and with this new option, voters have the option to vote for ‘None Of The Above’ (NOTA) if any voter does not want to voter any of the contestants.
Stating that the department will make assessment of the law and order situation, he said that the Election Department does not foresee any major law and problem though there are some vulnerable areas in Garo Hills.