National
Poll materials dispatched to 28 districts: EC
The Election Commission (EC) said it had dispatched voter education materials to 28 out of 32 districts where the first phase of federal and provincial elections are scheduled on November 26.The Election Commission (EC) said it had dispatched voter education materials to 28 out of 32 districts where the first phase of federal and provincial elections are scheduled on November 26.
The EC was forced to reprint separate ballot papers for federal and provincial elections under the first-past-the-post system after the Supreme Court (SC) ordered on October 25 to do so. Earlier, the EC had planned to use a single ballot paper.
The order also forced the election authority to change almost all voter education materials, according to the EC. “We have completed dispatching revised voter
education materials to 28 districts from Kathmandu by Tuesday,” said Mukunda Sharma, assistant spokesperson for the EC.
Not all voter education materials have been printed yet and are being printed one item at a time, according to another EC official.
Surya Prasad Aryal, information officer at the EC, said model ballot papers were being printed first. Materials including sample ballot papers, brochures and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) handbooks and some posters need to be reprinted, he added.
The EC estimates it would cost an addition Rs100 million to print all the required voter education materials.
The EC, which had planned to start the voter education programme from November 1, had to postponed it due to the SC order.
The poll body has assured the voter education material would reach all the districts by November 11—on time for volunteers to start the voter education programme. The election body has planned to mobilise around 20,000 volunteers across the country to impart voter education. Most of the volunteers have already been selected for the purpose, it said.