The EC on Wednesday decided to allow A-Roll Printing Company to supply the paper necessary for printing voter ID cards for the upcoming Constituent Assembly (CA) election scheduled for November 19.[break]
A-Roll Printing Company is among 18 printing companies that had submitted quotations for supplying paper for printing the voter IDs. Although there are 19 companies listed with the commission, only 18 had submitted quotations for supplying the paper.
“The company will start supplying paper from Sunday and the commission will begin printing the voter ID cards from Monday,” Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kantha Uptery told Republica on Wednesday.
He said the company will supply the necessary paper within seven days and the EC will start printing the ID cards immediately.
The EC, which has four printers at present, has already proceeded with the procurement of two more printers, in order to print the voter ID cards. The chief election commissioner maintained that they will print the voters ID cards with the existing four printers for the time being as it will take two days to get hold of the additional printers.
The EC has already decided to print 12.3 million voter ID cards for the upcoming CA polls. This is the first time in Nepal´s electoral history that voters will be getting separate voter ID cards.
Uprety informed that they will print 10 voter ID cards on one A4 size paper. “Security features will be printed by the supplier company on the front side of the ID card,” added the EC chief.
According to Uprety, the company awarded the contract will supply paper sheets with an appeal to voters to cast their votes printed on the back side of the ID cards and a request to return lost and found ID cards to the persons concerned or to the election office or the nearest police office.
The EC will print the name of the voter, his/her photo, address, date of birth, citizenship certificate number and ID card serial number, among other particulars, on the front side of the ID card.
EC officials say the voter ID card cannot be reproduced by photocopy or any other means. The ID cards will be colored and like ordinary ID cards in appearance, with a plastic covering.
Uprety argued that with the distribution of voter ID cards the poll exercise will be credible and pure.
According to officials, the EC plans to complete the distribution of voter ID cards through volunteers a week before the November 19 election.
Timeline for filing complaints against PR candidates began Thursday .The seven-day deadline given by the EC for filing complaints against the qualification of candidates under the proportional electoral system began Thursday.
According to the calendar of events for the proportional electoral system, one can file complaints against PR candidates in the closed lists till coming Thursday.
The EC will probe the complaints lodged against PR candidates and will take decisions on the metter on October 31.
The EC will issue a notice on November 7 regarding the removal of candidates from the closed lists while candidates wishing to withdraw their candidacy can file an application to this effect on November 8.
The commission will inform the political parties concerned on November 15 about any withdrawals of their candidates´ names and publish the final list of PR candidates the same day.
The EC on Wednesday made public the closed lists of about 11,000 candidates of 122 political parties, a day after they submitted their respective amended closed lists.
Eight political parties including the three major parties--UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN(UML)--have submitted closed lists of their candidates for all 335 seats under the proportional electoral system.
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