Ballot papers to be delivered within the first week of November

The Election Commission (EC) is working on schedule to deliver ballot papers to all districts within the first week of November.

Speaking to Nepalnews.com on Thursday, EC spokesperson Bir Bahadur Rai informed that the printing of the ballot papers will be complete by 1st November and that the papers will be delivered that week.

“The printing of ballot papers for proportional candidates is 75 percent complete,” Rai said. “The ballot papers for first-past-the-post candidates have been completed for 20 districts. At this rate, the printing process will be completed by 1st November.”

The EC is planning to reuse the ballot boxes from the 2008 election. However, it has received 20,000 bigger sized ballot boxes from the Japanese government.

“As a higher number of parties are participating in this election, the ballot paper is bigger,” said Rai. “Hence we are allocating the new and bigger boxes in high voter areas.”

The high number of parties and bigger ballot papers have also made the EC decrease the limit of voters in each station from 1,150 to 900. This year, the commission has designated 1,014 polling areas, with 18,457 polling stations. Rai said that this number almost finalised and is subject to only minor changes now.

source: nepalnews.com