SHILLONG: The State Election department is taking the help of National Electoral Rolls Purification and Authentication Programme to detect dubious and dual voters besides ensuring error-free electoral rolls.
Informing this here on Wednesday, Chief Electoral Officer FR Kharkongor said the Election department is also using a software to detect errors in the electoral rolls and so far 7,000 mistakes have been detected.
Replying to a query, Kharkongor said block-level officers are going door to door to check the antecedents and other details of the voters and electoral returning officers are taking extra caution during enrolment of new voters and during hearing. According to Kharkongor, the deputy commissioners looking after border areas are holding discussions with their counterparts in Assam to ensure that there are no dual voters.
“I have also spoken to my counterpart in Assam for sharing of the neighbouring state’s electoral roll so that we can detect potential dual voters,” he said.
Kharkongor appealed to people to approach the authorities and file their objections for deletion of names of doubtful applicants.
While expressing happiness over the fact that the EPIC coverage in Meghalaya is 100 per cent, Kharkongor said the main target of the Election Commission is to enroll more youths. There is an increase of 3.38 per cent in the number of voters in the updated draft rolls of the State with as many as 55,865 newly enrolled voters making it to the list.
In the course of the summary revision period, the total number of claims received was 74,360 and after hearing and verification, total claims accepted were 62,975. Altogether 7,110 deletions were made and 55,865 newly enrolled voters from among the eligible population were added to the electoral rolls as on date.
The total number of registered voters as on January 10, 2017, is 17,19,479 with 8,50,692 male and 8,68,787 female voters.
Kharkongor informed that the Election Department and the office of the CEO are gearing up to organise several programmes under SVEEP. The department is also contemplating roping in city schools and colleges to create awareness on enrollment and election participation in view of the 2018 Assembly elections.
