Bhubaneswar: A viral message about “challenge vote” and voting rights of Indian citizens is going viral on social media. The CEO Odisha has now termed the viral WhatsApp message regarding ‘Challenge Vote’ & ‘Tender Vote’ as fake.
What does it say?: The claim states the following points:
When you reach poling booth and find that your name is not in voter list, just show your Aadhar card or voter ID and ask for ” challenge vote” under section 49A and cast your vote.
If you find that someone has already cast your vote, then ask for “tender vote” and cast your vote.
If any polling booth records more than 14% tender votes, repolling will be conducted in such poling booth.
The first pointer in the post says that if your name is not in voter list then you just have to show your Aadhar card or voter ID and ask for challenge vote under section 49A and proceed to cast your vote.
However, this is false. When a person’s name is not on the voting list, they simply can’t vote.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) issues the Voter ID card to citizens after their names have successfully been included in the electoral rolls of their constituency.
Just because one has their Voter ID Card does not mean that that they will definitely be allowed to vote – because it is mandatory their name should appear in the electoral roll for them to vote.
The message mentions something called a ‘challenge vote’, and falsely quotes section 49A.
A ‘Challenged vote’ is where the polling agents challenge the identity of an elector and the presiding officer holds an inquiry into the challenge.
Meanwhile, section 49A in the ‘Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961’ describes the ‘Design of Electronic Voting Machines’, and has nothing to do with ‘challenge vote’.
The second statement in the viral message states that if you find that someone has already cast your vote, then you can ask for ‘tender vote’ and cast your vote.Once s/he is convinced that their identity is genuine, he or she will provide a tendered ballot paper and one can cast a ‘Tendered Vote’.
The last point: The message lastly states, “If any polling booth records more than 14% tender votes, repolling will be conducted in such polling booth.” This statement is false. Speaking to The Quint, former Padma Angmo, Director, ECI, had clarified in 2019 that tendered votes will be taken into account only on the direction of a High Court.
