KATHMANDU, Feb 15: The Election Commission (EC) has completed printing 18.23 million ballot papers for 142 constituencies across 66 districts for the House of Representatives election scheduled for Feb 21.
EC Assistant spokesperson Kul Bahadur GC said that as of Saturday, printing for 66 districts has been completed. Ballot printing for 63 districts was finished by Friday, with three more districts completed on Saturday. Ballot printing remains pending in 11 districts, mainly in and around the Kathmandu Valley, and is expected to be completed within two days.
Printing of ballot papers, voter ID cards completed: EC
The EC said packing has also been completed for all districts where printing is finished. So far, 16,494 ballot boxes have been packed. Currently, about 1,000 boxes are packed daily, while 1.1 to 1.5 million ballots are printed each day.
Ballot printing is being carried out at Janak Education Materials Centre Limited, Sanothimi, for both the proportional representation and first-past-the-post electoral systems. Printing began on January 6 with 1,098,200 sample ballots, which have already been dispatched to districts.
Printing for proportional representation ballots started on January 10 and was completed on January 27, with 20.83 million ballots printed, verified, packed, and kept ready for transport. For the direct election system, the EC said 20.323 million ballots are required; printing for this category began on January 30.
The EC has also started transporting ballots to 12 constituencies in 10 districts of Karnali Province. Assistant spokesperson Nyaupane said ballots have been dispatched to Salyan, Rukum West, Dolpa, Mugu, Humla, Kalikot, Jumla, Jajarkot, Dailekh, and Surkhet.
