Miscellaneous
Printing of ballot papers completed: EC
The Election Commission (EC) has completed printing of the ballot papers for upcoming federal and provincial elections.The Election Commission (EC) has completed printing of the ballot papers for upcoming federal and provincial elections.
“The printing of ballot papers—around 52.5 million—was completed on Sunday night. We have started dispatching them to 32 districts where the elections will be held in the first phase,” said EC Spokesperson Navaraj Dhakal.
The election body had started printing ballot papers in two phases—beginning with the ballots for the polls under proportional (PR) system on October 3 followed by those for the first-past-the-post (FPTP) category on October 29. The elections are scheduled to be held in two phases on November 26 and December 7. There were concerns whether the ballot paper could be printed on time when the Supreme Court ordered the EC on October 25 to print two sets of ballots for federal and provincial elections under the FPTP category.
The Janak Sikhshya Samagri Kendra (JSSK), which was tasked to print the ballot papers, completed the job a week ahead of the November 26 deadline.
“We used all seven of our presses round the clock to accomplish the job in time,” said a senior official at the JSSK, admitting that a smaller size of the FPTP ballot paper compared to the PR category made their task relatively easier.
“As the limited number of parties are competing in the elections under the FPTP category, the ballot papers was smaller in size which allowed us to print several ballot papers at once,” said the JSSK official.
The EC had planned to print 34 million ballot papers for the federal and provincial elections and print 34 million ballot papers. But it was forced to prepare an additional 17.5 million ballot papers following the court order.