India
oi-Vicky Nanjappa
New Delhi, Dec 01: The Election Commission of India has approached the government to permit Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) to cast their votes through postal ballots.
The EC told the Law Ministry that it is technically and administratively ready to extend the Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System to NRI voters for the next elections in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu.
Currently the NRIs can only cast their votes in their respective constituencies. Rough estimates suggest that there are around 1 crore Indians settled abroad of which 60 lakh are of an eligible voting age.
The Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System is currently available only to service voters. Under this the postal ballot is dispatched electronically and returned via ordinary mail. In order to extend this facility to overseas voters, the government needs to amend the…