NEW DELHI: Long queues at polling stations may soon be a thing of the past, with the Election Commisison working on a proposal to allow a voter to book his/her time slot for casting vote. As per the idea, an elector can book a convenient slot, say between between 11am to 12 noon or 1pm to 2pm, when he/she can turn up at the polling station and vote without having to wait long for his turn.

By letting people to book their time of voting, the “queue” management can be improved and waiting time cut, said an EC official. This will encourage potential voters who avoid going to polling stations for fear of queuing up before getting to cast their vote.

“Booking time slots will ensure that voters are staggered over the polling hours. The facility may be provided between, say, 8am to 3pm,” deputy election commissioner Umesh Sinha said on Thursday.

Among the other queue management techniques tried out by the EC is distribution of tokens to the voters, allowing them to be seated in a designated area, and calling them by turns to the polling booths as per their token numbers.

According to Sinha, who is looking after EC's Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation programme ( SVEEP ), the Commission has also set up an internal committee to address the problem faced by migratory population in exercising their franchise. “We are examining how to get the migratory population to vote, but are stumped by the lack of any official data on their numbers. The EC is in touch with the labour department and others to figure this out,” he said.

As part of its efforts to boost voter turnouts, the Commission is thinking of issuing voter slips on their mobiles or internet to compliment photo voter slips.

The printed photo voter slips are given to registered voters by the booth-level officer ahead of the day of polling. There have been complaints that people often do not get the slips, mostly due to the delay on part of the election machinery.