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A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Monday directed the Election Commission and the Chief Electoral Officer to ensure that no double voting takes place on the day of Assembly elections in the State.
The Bench, led by Chief Justice S Manikumar, observed that the Election Commission should ensure that voters be permitted to vote only in a polling station where he/she was the voter. The Commission should also deploy sufficient forces to ensure free and fair polls.
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The court passed the order on a petition filed by Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala seeking a directive to the Election Commission and the Chief Electoral Officer to take immediate steps to delete or freeze fake and multiple entries of names in the final electoral roll published for the Assembly poll.
Detailed inquiry
When the petition came up for hearing, counsel for the Election Commission submitted that the Election Commission and the Chief Electoral Officer were seized of the issue. In fact, immediately after receipt of the complaint from the petitioner, the Chief Electoral Officer had directed the district electoral officers to conduct a detailed inquiry to find out the factual position and report whether there had been any deliberate attempt to register more than one voter in electoral rolls.
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The Commission would continue with the inquiry even after the election to find out whether there was any administrative or technical lapses or shortcomings and would take appropriate disciplinary/penal actions as required against those responsible for the false entries. However, the focus of the Election Commission now was on the conduct of free and fair election with particular emphasis on prevention of multiple voting by a single voter.
Webcasting of polls
The affidavit filed by the Commission pointed out that arrangements had been made for webcasting of polls in 20,441 polling booths, which was one of “the force multiplier tools” to prevent impersonation. The polling agents appointed by the political parties on the day of poll could also help the presiding officers to detect and prevent impersonation of voters. There were enough safeguards and mechanisms within the statutes empowering the presiding officers to prevent bogus/multiple voting.
In fact, the Chief Electoral Officer had taken all possible steps to ensure that the sanctity of the electoral roll was maintained, and that no person was allowed to cast unauthorised votes in the Assembly election. Instructions had already been issued to prevent multiple voting by a single voter, the affidavit added.
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