Political parties on Wednesday asked the Election Commission (EC) to extend the duration for voter list update from 15 days to one month for provincial and national parliamentary elections.

On Monday, the EC had decided to update the voter list from July 16 to July 30 for the two elections-federal and national-which the poll body plans to hold by November. The voter list update plan is aimed at including those who were not included in the earlier EC list published on April 16 and those who have become eligible to vote. 

The April 16 voter list was published for the local level elections, first and the second rounds of which have been held with the third round scheduled for September 18. 

As per the EC’s voter list update calendar, people can register their names, correct mistakes on the existing list and remove double registration from July 16-30.

Work to update the voter list has been halted since February 20 when the government announced local level elections. As per the Electoral Rolls Act, the voter list updating process must be stopped after the elections are announced. 

Parties at a meeting organised by the EC at its office on Wednesday argued that the 15-day window would not be enough to include all left-out voters. 

CPN-UML leader Rajendra Pandey said the deadline should be extended to mid-August to include as many voters in the list.

Leaders of other smaller parties including CPN (ML), Rastriya Janamorcha and Nepal Majdoor Kisaan Party also insisted that the EC extend the voter list update deadline, at least to the date of poll announcement. 

The EC has already called on the government to announce dates for federal and national elections by the first week of August.  

Representatives of the ruling Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre) were not present at the meeting. 

A total of 14,054,482 citizens were listed as eligible to vote in the local level elections. Of them, 4,956,927 voters were eligible to cast vote in the first phase of polls held on May 14 and 6,432,765 were eligible to vote in the second phase of elections held on June 28. 

However, the election body is of the view that it had to keep the duration short because there is little time left to hold provincial and national elections as well as the elections for the National Assembly.

The country must hold all these elections by January 21 next year when the tenure of incumbent Parliament expires. 

The EC has argued that as the elections cannot be held in the mountain regions in the winter, all elections need to be held before November-end. 

“For this, elections should be declared in the first week of August,” said Chief Election Commissioner Ayodhee Prasad Yadav.

During the meeting, leaders also expressed concern over EC’s decision that voters must reach district election offices with their citizenship certificates for registration, saying many people from villages might not be able to reach the district headquarters.

The election body has, however, stated that it could not mobilise human resources in the rainy season in villages and towns. “We want the political parties, who have organisations at the grass-roots level, to encourage left-out voters and people eligible to vote to reach district election offices to get registered,” said Yadav. He said that the EC has plans to create permanent structure to register voters at local level in the future. 

Meanwhile, the EC has made it clear that it has abandoned the system of allowing voters to register their names from districts other than their own, saying its software was not functioning properly. “We are facing problems like voters not being registered in the system even after receiving the slip that says they were registered in districts 

other than their own,” said CEC Yadav. The system of allowing voters to register their names from districts other than their own had made it easier for many people, as they did not have to go back to their home districts just for the registration.