One-third votes cast in Surkhet invalid
A total of 36 votes were cast in the sample voting program.
KATHMANDU: MAY. 8 – One-third of the votes cast in mock polling held in Surkhet on Saturday were deemed invalid. The exercise was held in the lead up to the May 13 local level election.
A total of 36 votes were cast in the sample voting program conducted at Shrikrishna Sanskrit Secondary School in Birendranagar, Surkhet. Out of them, only 24 votes were valid, said State Election Officer Durga Prasad Chalise.
According to him, 10 of the voters were partially invalid and two votes were completely invalid.
Today’s sample voting results show a lack of voter education, said Chalise. The political parties and their cadres need to work on this to avoid invalid votes.
Kumari Bhusal, a representative of the National Consumers Forum Surkhet, said that the voters may be confused due to the large size of the ballot papers for voting in the local level election. He said that the political parties should inform the voters in a timely manner to reduce the number of invalid votes.
Information Officer at the Provincial Election Office, Nirmala Regmi, said that the sample polling program was held today with the objective of spreading the message to reduce the possibility of invalid voting.
