Polling officials asked to ensure no proxy voting during Nagaland assembly election

The office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Nagaland, has directed all the presiding officers, polling officials and district election machinery to ensure that no proxy voting takes place in any polling stations, when the state goes to poll on Monday.

However, it informed that exception has been made for “those person who has been authorized to vote as proxy for an elector under any law for the time being in force in so far as he votes as a proxy for such elector”.

The notification stated that the Indian Constitution grants adult suffrage to every citizen of India who has attained the age of 18 and is registered as a voter.

It stated that “whoever voluntarily interferes or attempts to interfere with the free exercise of any electoral rights commits the offence of undue influence at an election; and whoever at an election applies for a voting paper or votes in the name of any other person, whether living or dead, or in a fictitious name, or who having voted once at such election applies at the same election for a voting paper in his own name, and whoever abets, procures or attempts to procure the voting by any person in any such way, commits the offence of personation at an election”.

“Whoever commits the offence of undue influence or personation at an election shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both,” it added. Dimapur, Feb. 25 (EMN)