As a follow-up to the announcement of allowing Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) to be able to cast their vote during elections in India, the Indian Election Commission is collecting data pertinent to NRIs beginning today. A voter registration drive that starts today across the entire nation will have NRI information collection as one of their newest initiatives. This drive concludes on November 30, 2017. Based on this, the NRI will be able to appoint a reliable proxy to cast his vote on his behalf, even if overseas.

Features

• There are several polling booths in India. Individual Booth Level Officers are assigned a specific locality.
• They are to go to each residence in the designated locality and collect information pertaining to each member of that household above the age of 18 into the voter list.
• This is an opportunity for all NRIs present in the house at the time to enroll their particulars into the voter registration list.
• Anyone who may have permanently immigrated, will have their names deleted from the voter listing.
• This also covers voters who are deceased.
• During these visits by the booth level officers, cell phone numbers of voters will also be collected. This will be used as a primary source of information dissemination, be it for duplications, instructions and/or important dates.
• The data collected will be sent to the Election Commission before the end of the year
• The final list will be published in January 2018.

The 16 million NRIs living abroad will also have an opportunity to register to vote in India. The Election Commission of India has sent over senior officials to major cities in the US to facilitate voter registration for its NRI electorate base. Indian Residents of Washington, DC, New York and San Francisco can now register as voters for India if they have an Indian passport.

To follow up on how the NRI can cast his vote finally, read how new system of Proxy Vote for the NRI is going to work out wherein he can have a say in Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.