To draw more people to polling booths in Karnataka, EC sets up voter facilitation counters in locations that have multiple booths Chunavana app help desk locate

The voter facilitation counters aim to increase polling percentage by guiding voters

To ensure people do not face any hassle in locating their polling booths in locations where more than three booths are clustered, the Election Commission has set up voter facilitation counters to assist people. This is one of the strategies adopted by the Commission to deal with urban apathy and to increase voter turnout.

The voter facilitation counters will be like a help desk for people to locate their booth in the cluster.

In entire Karnataka, 3,415 locations have multiple polling booths.

Of the 14 constituencies where polling will be held on Friday April 26, as many as 2,089 locations have more than three polling booths.

Kurma Rao M., Additional Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), said some locations, such as schools and colleges, have multiple polling booths. “People tend to go away after seeing huge queues at the booths. Booth-level officers (BLOs) will be deployed at the voter facilitation counters to guide voters to their booth, and ensure that they do not go away without voting,” he said.

Manoj Kumar Meena, Chief Electoral Officer for Karnataka, who admitted that urban apathy is a huge challenge, said all measures are being taken to ensure people do not make any excuse to not go to the polling station. “In polling booths where a big crowd gathers, we will issue tokens for a hassle-free voting experience,” he said.

To help voters navigate their way to the polling station, the Election Commission has distributed voters’ slips with QR codes in urban constituencies. Voters can scan the QR code to find their way to the polling station.