ELECTION COVERAGE

In what is being seen as a big semi-final ahead of the 2024 general elections, nine states will go to polls this year. The results will be an indicator of the direction in which the political winds are. The states are Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka

If you are a citizen of India and have attained the age of 18 on the qualifying date of January 1 of the applying year you are eligible to enrol. A recent change has also permitted those above the age of 17 to pre-register as voters.

https://www.nvsp.in/ has all the answers to your queries, these may include registration of new voter/due to shifting from another constituency, applying online, deletion or objection in electoral roll. You may also use the ECI website https://eci.gov.in/ or the Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation website, http://ecisveep.nic.in/ , also known as SVEEP, for all voter literature.

Enrollment can happen only at the place of your residence, not another place. In such cases, you will need to fill Form 8A. For such changes one needs to be write an application to Electoral Registration Officer of the constituency. To apply online you can download the form from NVSP portal https://www.nvsp.in/ or from the ECI website https://eci.gov.in/.

EVMs were first used in Kerala's Parvur assembly in 1982. It has a control unit manned by the polling officer and a voting or balloting unit placed inside the voting cubicle. The polling officer releases the ballot by pressing the ballot button on the control unit, allowing the voter to cast his vote by pressing the blue button on the balloting unit against the candidate's name, symbol. EVMs run on battery and can be used to record a maximum of 2,000 votes.

Brought in on September 2013 by the Supreme Court, Nota or or "None of the Above" lets the voter not choose all the candidates contesting. Nota button pressed indicates the voter has not chosen to vote for any of the party. Do note that Nota does not give the voter the right to reject, meaning the candidate with the maximum number of votes wins the election irrespective of the number of NOTA votes polled.

VVPAT helps verify your vote. VVPAT or Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail gives an instant feedback of your vote and can be accessed by polling officials, not you. The VVPAT machine prints a slip that has the name of the candidate and the election symbol and automatically drops it in a sealed box.