Mangalore, Apr 4: Be prepared for a change when you extend your left index finger for indelible ink to be applied inside the polling booth. Instead of a blob of ink at the bottom of the nail, the official concerned will draw a line from the top of the nail to the bottom of the first joint of the finger.

Apart from that the Election Commission of India (ECI) has issued instructions to ensure that polling booths are disabled-friendly. All polling booths should be located on the ground floor and ramps should be provided to provide access to disabled persons.

An announcement on the ECI website says Union Government and Central public sector unit employees will be deployed as "micro-observers" in select polling stations. They will observe the poll process and submit a report to their respective constituency observers.

This is in addition to deploying general and expenditure observers to ensure smooth conduct of the elections, the announcement said. The observers will be asked to keep a close watch on the electoral process to ensure free and fair elections.

The Commission has issued detailed guidelines for video coverage of all critical events during the election process and polling at sensitive and hypersensitive booths. Digital cameras will be deployed inside the booths wherever possible.

Communication plan

The district election officers have been asked to prepare a comprehensive communication plan using multimode resources such as landline telephones, mobile telephones and wireless sets to facilitate effective monitoring and control of the poll process. They have also been asked to set up helplines or control rooms in each Assembly constituency for the convenience of voters, the announcement says.

As of now there are 39,758 polling stations in the State. The district election officers have been authorised to propose additional polling stations wherever needed for the convenience of voters. The ECI will appoint additional polling personnel in booths where the number of voters exceeds 1,200.

Random polling parties (group of officials) will be formed using a common Statewide computer programme, according to the ECI announcement. "First, from a wider district database of eligible officials, a shortlist of about 120 per cent of the required numbers will be randomised. This group will be trained for polling duties. In the second stage, from this trained manpower, actual polling parties shall be formed by random selection software in the presence of ECI observers. In the last stage, the polling stations will be allocated just before the polling party’s departure by random number generation."

Hindu