Even educated people cast wrong votes in MLC elections

Karimnagar: Teachers who teach and educated people who are waiting for jobs after completing higher studies, cast wrong votes in the Graduates’ and Teachers’ MLC elections. Instead of numbers, they wrote ticks, circles, and names.
Going into details, in the polling held for Karimnagar, Medak, Nizamabad, and Adilabad Graduates’ and Teachers’ MLC constituencies held on Feb 27, some teachers and graduates did not vote correctly.
All those votes were invalidated due to actions such as drawing circles, ticking, writing names, signatures, and writing comments in the box opposite the candidates they had voted for. The number of invalid votes out of the total votes cast was more than 11 per cent.
All the voters in the Graduate’s and Teacher’s MLC elections are highly educated. Teachers regularly go to the polling duty for Assembly and local body elections. However, there is criticism that they are showing negligence when it comes to voting. About 2,52,100 votes were cast out of a total of 3.55 lakh votes in the Graduate seat of Karimnagar, Medak, Adilabad and Nizamabad. Out of this, about 28,000 votes were invalid.
Invalid votes were also found in the Teachers’ MLC counting conducted on Monday. Out of a total of 27,088 votes, 25,041 votes were cast, out of which 871 votes were invalid. In the Nalgonda, Warangal and Khammam Teacher MLCs, 499 votes were invalid. It is noteworthy that the number of invalid votes was more than the votes received by independent candidates.
In the 2019 elections for the Medak, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Adilabad Graduate MLC constituencies, 9,932 votes were invalidated. 9.5 percent of the votes cast then were invalid. This time, a higher number of 28,000 votes (11 percent) were invalidated. In the 2019 Medak, Nizamabad, Adilabad and Karimnagar Teacher MLC elections, 533 teachers’ votes were invalidated. This time, that number has increased to 871 votes. There is also criticism that the Election Commission is not paying attention to creating awareness on the voting process through the media and social media. During the counting of MLC votes in Karimnagar, candidates from various parties and independents also raised the same issue and expressed their concerns.
Some said that the Election Commission did not conduct proper campaigning and wanted a re-polling. Graduate MLC candidate Dr. Mustakh Ali, speaking to The Hans India, said that measures should be taken to create widespread awareness among graduates and teachers about the voting process in MLC elections.
NGO Chintaju Bhaskar said that the contesting candidates should also hold meetings with polling agents and activists to discuss the election campaign as well as the voting process in detail and conduct mass polling to educate the agents and voters. This would prevent wrong votes from being cast.