According to sources, in the meeting held last week with MEA, the EC is learned to have proposed that a designated officer in the Indian mission download the ballot paper on the voter’s behalf and hand it over. The overseas elector can then mark her preference at the mission, get the self-declaration form attested by the designated officers and hand back the ballot paper and declaration form in a sealed envelope to the mission, which will then dispatch all the envelopes to the election officer concerned.
As first reported by The Indian Express on December 1, the EC approached the Law Ministry last month to permit NRIs to cast their votes overseas through postal ballots. The Commission told the government that it had received representations from the Indian diaspora about facilitating voting through postal votes since travelling to India for elections was a “costly affair”.