Mangaluru: Deputy Commissioner A B Ibrahim held a meeting regarding the upcoming MLC elections, at his office here, on December 15.
The MLC elections are scheduled to be held on December 27 and out of 14 nominations, 6 candidates have withdrawn their candidature. The remaining 8 candidates are – S Prakash Shetty, K Prathapchandra Shetty, Praveenchandra Jain, Kota Srinivas Poojary, Alphons Franko, Ismail Dhoddamanava, K Jayaprakash Hegde and K Harikrishna Bantwal.
Every polling station will have one presiding officer, one nodal officer, one group-D personnel and one police personnel. If the number of voters exceed 25 in a polling station, then an additional nodal officer will be appointed. All the officers will be trained in connection with the election, on December 21 at 11 am in the town hall, Ibrahim said.
Pink ballot papers with the name and photograph of the candidates are being printed in Bengaluru. The candidates can print a “dummy” ballot in colours other than pink in which, the serial number, name, photograph of the candidate and the number of votes needed for a majority can be printed.
Ibrahim further said that the ballot paper will feature 8 candidates and a NOTA (None Of The Above) option. Voters can cast their vote by marking 1,2,3,..,8 or in roman numerals I,II,III against the candidates only in a violet sketch pen which will be provided with the ballot paper, where 1 is for the most preferred candidate and 8 being the least preferred candidate. The vote will not be counted if the number 1 is not marked in the ballot paper or if the number 1 is marked against NOTA. The preferences should not be indicated in words as one, two, three, etc. Any other marks like tick mark, cross mark, signature, thumb impression, etc. will render the vote as invalid.
After the voting process, the ballot boxes will be transported to the counting centre at Victoria Girls Pre-University College at Ladyhill, Urwa amid tight police security. The votes will be counted from 27 to 30 December. Counting will be done on 15 tables. Candidates can appoint a counting agent to each table. Each counting agent has to submit a filled Form-18 along with a picture to the Election Officer.
