Do you know about ETPBS? Okay, then let’s know more on it from Priyanshi Pareek’s informative article..
What is ETPBS?
Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS) is the one-way electronic transmission of the Postal ballots to the Service Voters. The Service Voter then cast their vote and send it to the respective returning officer via Post. The complete process is secured by way of multiple checks and transmission protocol to ensure safe transmission. Upon receipt of the postal ballot at the counting centres, the returning officer validates the receipt by a series of QR codes with that of the transmitted system.
Who is a Service Voter?
Persons working in Central Forces under Arms Act and Government officials deployed in Embassies outside the country are classified as Service Voters and are provisioned for online enrolment.
Features of ETPBS
- Service voters can avail of the ETPBS service from anywhere outside their constituency.
- System facilitates the creation of service voter electoral roll data.
- It is easy, efficient and hassle-free.
- It is a secure system, having two-layer security.
- OTP is required to download an encrypted Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot file.
- Secrecy is maintained and no duplicacy is possible due to the QR code.
- A PIN is required to decrypt, print and deliver ETPB.
ETPBS important facts
- It was for the first time in 2019 that the Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System was used for registering the votes of the Service voters
- While in the 2014 General Election, 13,27,627 registered Service Electors were enrolled. This IT flagship programme, ETPBS, enabled 18,02,646 service voters to register their votes in the 2019 General Elections
- Of the total voters registered in 2019:
- 10,16,245 were from the Ministry of Defence
- 7,82,595 from the Ministry of Home Affairs (Central Armed Police Forces)
- 3539 of Ministry of External Affairs
- 267 of State Police
- A total of 18,02,646 postal ballots were dispatched electronically through ETPBS for the 2019 General Elections and in return, 10,84,266 e-postal ballots were received indicating a 60.14% turnout. This was way more in comparison to the 4% turnout of service voters in the 2014 General Election