The Election Commission on Thursday said photo voter slips cannot be used as standalone identification documents during elections. The poll body said that voters will have to carry any one of several approved identification cards to the polling booth to be able to cast their vote, PTI reported.
The Election Commission said it made the decision after receiving complaints that photo voter slips do not possess any security feature. “The design of the photo voter slip does not incorporate any security feature,” it said. “In fact, it was started as an alternative document as the coverage of Electoral Photo Identity Card was not complete.”
The documents that will be acceptable as identity cards for polling are: voter ID, passport, Aadhaar card, driving licence, service identity cards, passbooks, PAN card, Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Scheme job card, health insurance smart card, pension document with photograph, and IDs issued to legislators.
However, photo voter slips will continue to be issued to potential voters as an “awareness building exercise”, the poll body said. The slips will carry a disclaimer that they cannot be used as a standalone document for the purpose of voting, it added.
“In the Electoral Photo Identity Card, minor discrepancies in the entries therein should be ignored provided the identity of the elector can be established by the card,” the Election Commission added.
The Lok Sabha elections are expected to be held in April and May.
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