With the municipal elections being conducted through paper ballots this time, candidates in Nabha town educated voters on the correct method of casting and folding ballot papers to avoid rejection of votes.
The move comes in the wake of the Zila Parishad elections in Patiala district, where nearly 3.75 per cent votes were declared invalid due to improper handling of ballot papers.
During the Zila Parishad elections, several votes were cancelled after ballot papers were folded incorrectly, causing the ink mark to appear against more than one candidate. The issue reportedly led to the rejection of thousands of votes across the district.
Ward No. 22 candidate in Nabha Sujata Chawla and her husband Munish Kumar are circulating a video in the local WhatsApp groups and also explaining to the voters on how to correctly fold the ballot paper after stamping it.
Similarly, Ward No. 2 candidate Gursewak Singh said after the High Court rejected petitions seeking the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs), he started demonstrating the voting process to the local residents by using sample ballot papers to show how these should be folded and inserted into the ballot box.
The SDM-cum-Returning Officer of Nabha, APS Somal, told the media that polling staff had been specially trained and voters would be handed pre-folded ballot papers. The Deputy Commissioner of Patiala, Dr Himanshu Aggarwal, said election staff were also spreading awareness among voters regarding the correct voting procedure on ballot papers.
