Women voters outnumber men in Udupi district

The district administration has handed over the voters' list to all political parties on Saturday following the instructions by Election Commission (EC).

Additional Deputy Commissioner Anuradha said the total number of voters in the district is 9,78,503. In this, 4,70,730 are men and 5,07,773 are women, including 18 under other category.

The constituencies are Byndoor, Kundapur, Udupi, Kaup and Karkala. The voters' list will also be put up at the polling booths in the district.

The 1,450 ballot units and 1,620 control units have been supplied from Surendranagar in Gujarat. Around 50 ballot and control units are supplied from Shivamogga. The EVMs with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) will be used and the polling timing will be extended for one hour extra as directed by the EC.

1,078 booths

As many as 1,078 polling booths have been set up in all the five constituencies - 243 booths in Byndoor, 215 in Kundapur, 213 in Udupi, 203 in Kaup and 204 in Karkala.

The number of booths is expected to increase as the number of voters will increase following the enrollment of new voters in the voters' list. Additional polling booths will be set up as auxiliary polling booths.

Anuradha said the EP percent in each assembly constituency in the district includes 81.87% in Byndoor with 2,18,863 voters, 80.31% in Kundapur with 1,97,061 voters, 77.74% in Udupi with 2,03,777 voters, 79.28% in Kaup with 1,79,794 voters and 79.5% in Karkala with 1,79,008 voters.

VVPAT machines

She said VVPATs are being used in Assembly election for the first time. They were used in Mysuru bypolls earlier. The VVPAT machines are used during process to verify that the vote polled by a voter goes to the correct candidate.

The VVPATs are a second line of verification and are particularly useful at a time when allegations are being heard about EVMs. Ten percent extra VVPATs are offered as substitute in case of failures or technical errors, she said.

She also said that the changes can be done in the voters' list if any discrepancy is there. The voters' list is also put up on udupi.nic.in/election-2018/index.html. The election-related grievances can be reported to the toll free number 1,077.

There were 87,382 voters, of which 4,13,094 were men and 4,60,738 were women during 2013 elections. Then, the number of polling booths was 1,038 and it was 1,059 during the 2014 parliamentary elections. There is addition of 29,000 voters under Form 6.

SVEEP programmes

Elaborating on the Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programmes, ZP CEO Shivanand Kapashi said programmes are held at all wards.

Awareness committees, with local representatives of the political parties, have been set up. Besides, Anganwadi and Asha workers will work with the party members to create awareness among the masses over importance of exercising franchise, he added.

There are 8,000 differently-abled voters in the district. They will be given all required facilities during voting, he said.