In an attempt to increase the voter turnout and motivate the citizens to vote the Election Commission of India has initiated a ‘Vote from Home’ programme for voters aged 80 years and above and especially abled voters. Over 2.48 lakh senior citizens from the district would make use of this service during the Lok Sabha elections, stated the State Election Commission. The Pune district has the greatest concentration of senior citizen residents in the state, according to the official voter list for the polls. This concession would be available to around 26 lakh voters in Maharashtra.
Voters who prefer not to use this service can still cast their ballots in person at the polling place. To assist the elderly, special volunteers will be stationed at polling places. To make voting easier for elderly citizens, polling places across the state and nation will all be on the ground level. There will be 150 housing societies with voting centres situated in residential communities. The voters who wish to avail of the service must fill the form 12-D to be eligible for the service of voting from home. The forms will be reviewed by the district collector a final decision will be taken 7 to 8 days before the polling date. The first experiment of the vote-from-home service was carried out during the Kasba Vidhansabha Bypolls where almost 550 voters availed the vote-from-home service. The polling booth will be set up in the societies and surveillance will be carried out via webcasting where the District Collector and the State Election Commission will keep a vigil on the polling process.
Chief Electoral Officer Shrikant Deshpande while addressing the media claimed that the voters should avail of the service and come out in large numbers to vote, “If the senior citizens and the specially-abled voters are willing to visit the pooling booth at the normal polling centres it will certainly motivate others to step out of their homes and practise their right to vote. However, the eligible voters should certainly make full use of the vote from the facility and vote in large numbers.”