Online Voter Registration in Bangalore - My Experiences
My Experience - 1
Sometime in 2012 there started a flurry of facebook posts on online voter registration for the upcoming 2013 Karnataka assembly elections. A number of organizations and volunteers (like BPAC and smartvote) were working sincerely to encourage the citizens to register their names on the rolls. It was then that I decided to register myself too.
My old voterID card was made in my hometown Jodhpur, Rajasthan and I had voted there before but to vote in Bangalore I needed to register here. So I went to the Karnataka govt.'s website for Online Submission of Forms. The site is not super good but provides the basic information. Here are my experiences of getting a voterID card by applying online -
31st July, 2012: Registered on website. Based on the information provided, it was clear that I had to fill Form 6 (Inclusion of my name in Bangalore's electoral rolls). To fill the form, you need to know your assembly constituency or ward number. If you don’t know any of these, check bcity website. It has a nice map based ward demarcation feature using which you can know your ward number and assembly constituency both.
6 Aug, 2012 - Submitted the online application. It required following documents (scanned copy) -
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Recent passport size photo (Photo should be in jpg format and maximum allowed size is 50KB)
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Age Proof Document (should be in pdf format and maximum allowed size is 1MB)
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Address Proof Document (should be in pdf format and maximum allowed size is 1MB).
Please keep these handy while filling the form otherwise the session might expire and you will have to refill the form.
6 Aug, 2012 - Application Status - "In Process:- Application Received."
10 Aug, 2012 - Took printout of my Form 6 acknowledgement and speed posted it along with supporting documents to the office of AERO (address mentioned in acknowledgement)
1 Nov, 2012 - Application Status - "In Process:- Application Received."
13 Dec, 2012 - Application Status - "Your Application Entered into the system. It is waiting for AERO Decision (It meant my application request was moving to next step and I hoped that my name will reflect in electoral rolls soon.)
23 Jan, 2013 - The Election Commission of Karnataka published the latest electoral rolls some time back so I tried to search my name online on the ceokarnataka website. I could find my name and all the details including voterID number.
9 Feb, 2013 - VoterID card was delivered to my home by some local volunteer. I have heard that some people had to go to the nearest BBMP office or Bangalore one center to collect the voterID card.
Please note that voterID card is not necessary to vote. If your name is in the voter list, you can vote with any govt issued photo card (Driving license, passport, Aadhar card , ration card etc) to identify yourself. Besides, voterID card does not have your polling booth details. I had to check online voter rolls (pdf file) to figure out my polling booth.
My Experience - 2
After casting my vote for the assembly elections, I had to shift my house within Bangalore. The new residential address fell into a different assembly constituency, which meant that I need to fill form 6 again to get my name included in electoral rolls of that assembly constituency. With the 2014 loksabha elections approaching I decided to get this done soon. As I have now become an experienced player at filling form 6, I didn't have to spend much time on it :) Here are my experiences second time -
4 Dec, 2013 - Submitted the online application. Application Status - "In Process:- Application Received."
10 Dec, 2013 - Took printout of my Form 6 acknowledgement and speed posted it along with supporting documents to the office of AERO
1 Feb, 2014 - Application Status - " Field Verification Completed." (it meant my name should be updated in the electoral list soon.)
26 Mar, 2014 - My Assembly constituency, Part No and Section/ Street was updated . Yippie! :) (it meant my name has come in the voter list)
FAQs:
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How do I check the status of Form 6 Application?
Ans:- Login on website. To check the status you just need to enter the application number as printed in the Form 6 acknowledgement. -
Is it necessary to provide the details of previous voterID card?
Ans:- It is recommended to provide the details of previous voterID card so that your name could be deleted from the previous area's list and added in new area's list. Though this is not mandatory, just a good practice. -
What is Part Number in electoral rolls?
Ans:- Part number represents a unique Polling booth. Also note that one physical building, for e.g. a school or college, can have multiple polling booths. You can only give vote in the polling booth represented by your part number. -
How do I know my polling booth address ?
Ans:-