The Election Commission is preparing to resume its voters’ registration programme this week, more than a year after the programme was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic and the announcement of snap elections.

Officials, who were worried that a large number of people could be left out of the electoral rolls if the snap polls went ahead, are now heaving a sigh of relief.

“A meeting of the commission scheduled for Wednesday is expected to resume registration from Thursday,” said Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Thapaliya. The commission had halted registration on March 3 last year just ahead of the nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19.

As per Section 4 of the Act on Voters’ Registration-2017, new voters can’t be registered once the dates for elections are announced.

“Even though the commission officially resumed voters’ registration in late June last year, hardly any voter approached the district offices of the commission amid fears of contracting Covid-19,” said Komal Dhamala, assistant spokesperson for the commission. Then in December, the government announced dates for fresh elections.

“After the election was announced in December, we had to halt the registration campaign. This meant that new voters couldn’t get themselves registered for more than a year.”

President Bidya Devi Bhandari on December 20 announced mid-term parliamentary elections for April 30 and May 10 after dissolving the House of Representatives as per recommendations from Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s Cabinet. But, the Supreme Court on February 23, reinstated the House declaring that its dissolution was unconstitutional.

This paved the way for the resumption of voters’ registration, officials said.

As per the law, one can register as a voter after crossing 16 years of age, but one can vote only after 18.

After the elections were announced, the commission updated the voters’ list. After the new update, 16.2 million people are on the electoral roll, according to Thapaliya. During the last parliamentary elections, the number was 15.42 million.

But, officials at the commission said that had the elections taken place as announced, a large number of eligible voters would be deprived of their right to vote as registration had been halted for a long time.

The sudden announcement of the elections had also prevented many potential voters from registering their names as most people tend to register their names only hours before the deadline.

Even during the last federal and provincial elections held in 2017, a huge difference was found between the number of voters registered for local elections, held in early 2017, and for provincial and federal elections later that year.

The commission had printed and distributed an additional 2.17 million voters’ identity cards before the provincial and federal elections after distributing 14.05 million for local elections.

The commission has also realised that many eligible voters are still out of the voters’ list due to the year-long disruption in people’s mobility.

Usually, the commission allows people to register their names on the voters’ list on all workdays. But, considering the disruption in movement of people in the last year, the commission plans to launch a special voters’ registration programme to reach out to every ward of every local government to register new voters. “We plan to start the campaign around the end of this fiscal year and expedite the process by the start of the new fiscal year targeting the local elections to be held in early 2022.”