Election Commission to dispose of unused ballot papers

Kathmandu, March 24: The Election Commission (EC) is planning to dispose of the unused ballot papers after the completion of House of Representatives election held on March 5.

Nearly 40 percent of the total printed ballots were left unused during the election.

In the first-past-the-post (FPTP) and proportional category of the election, EC had recorded 59 percent voter turnout, causing no use of 40 percent of the printed ballot papers. EC had printed the ballot papers at Janak Education Materials Centre (JEMC), exceeding the number of voters (7 % up) for both categories of election.

Spokesperson at EC, Narayan Prasad Bhattarai, informed that it is a practice of printing more number of ballot papers than that of voters. Total 41.1 million and 43 thousand ballot papers were printed this time for the HoR election. Those left unused ballot papers will be destroyed by meeting legal procedure.

“We’ve submitted the HoR election report to the President. There is no doubt on election integrity, neither the political parties have questioned over election fairness,” Bhattarai made it clear while informing about the preparation to dispose the unused ballot papers.

Managing Director at JEMC, Yadunath Paudel, informed that JEMC had assisted EC by printing ballot papers as high as 1.3 million in a day and handed over EC safely. The printing business helps JEMC recover the loss.

As per legal provision, ‘disposing government document’ refers to the destruction of the documents in a way it becomes difficult to read and use these again. Even the burning of such documents is known as disposing.