The Nagaland Board of School Education (NBSE) has notified the heads of educational institutions in the state to help eligible students register themselves in the electoral rolls.
The board issued the notice on Friday following the instructions of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to maximise the enrolment of young/prospective electors from campuses through active participation of educational institutions.
It said an error-free and updated electoral roll is a prerequisite for a free, fair and inclusive election. The electoral roll is updated regularly through the annual summary revision and continuous updation, wherein special focus is given to the registration of new/prospective electors who are or will be eligible for registration in the electoral roll.
The board said earlier the registration in the electoral roll was done with respect to one qualifying date, January 1 of the coming year. However, with the recent change in the registration process, the provision of four qualifying dates has been introduced – January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1 of the year, on which the final publication of the electoral roll is done. This has enabled more prospective electors to submit advance applications or claims for registration in Form 6, upon the draft publication of the electoral roll, usually done in November every year.
Noting that the registration of new/prospective electors has always been a challenging task, the board said in spite of the Election Commission’s consistent efforts to encourage and increase enrolment in the 18-19 age group, there has always been a shortfall in the registration numbers. As the majority of such prospective electors are part of the educational institutes, the commission felt that the registration of young/prospective electors can be maximised through the active participation of educational institutions.
This can be done by providing a dedicated space on the institutions’ websites where a link for the registration of new voters along with awareness slogans may be given to encourage the students to register as electors. This link would direct the applicant to Form 6 ‘Registration of new voter’ on the National Voters’ Service (NVS) portal.
The board also said a field embedded towards the end of the registration/examination form with the tagline ‘Application form to be a new voter’ may be provided. A click on the same will direct the applicant to Form 6 ‘Registration of new voter’ on the NVS portal by hyperlinking the tagline with the portal, it added.
