Postal Ballots in Elections

About  Postal Ballot

• It enables eligible voters to submit their votes via mail rather than personally visiting a polling place.
• This method provides a convenient option for individuals who are unable to participate in person due to various reasons.
• Eligibility criteria to vote using postal ballots:
  • Service voters including members of the armed forces, paramilitary forces and government employees assigned to election duties away from their home
  • Electors on election duty including government officials and polling staff working at polling stations outside their home areas.
  • Electors under preventive detention orders during the election period can also avail themselves of this option.
  • Individuals engaged in essential services on polling day like essential workers, including authorized media personnel and those in railways and healthcare, can vote via postal ballots in Lok Sabha and four state Assembly elections.
  • Absentee voters: Those who are unable to vote in person due to work commitments, illness, or disability.
  • The amendment in October 2019 to the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, lowered the eligible age for senior citizens from 85 to 80 and permitted Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) to use postal ballots in the 2020 Delhi Assembly elections.
• What is the process of postal voting?
  • It involves receiving a ballot kit from the Returning Officer, marking the chosen candidate(s) on the ballot paper within a secrecy sleeve, completing a declaration form, sealing the marked ballot and declaration in the secrecy sleeve, inserting it into a prepaid return envelope, affixing postage, and mailing it to the designated address before the deadline.
• Counting of postal ballots:
  • Postal ballots are counted separately. On counting day, postal authorities bring them to the counting centre.
  • Election officials verify their validity and add valid ballots to the candidates' vote counts.