Over 4,600 Votes Declared Invalid in Kaski's Recent House of Representatives Election

Kaski. A total of 4,698 votes were declared invalid in the House of Representatives election held on Falgun 21 in Kaski. Out of the total 191,425 votes cast across the three constituencies in the district, 186,727 votes were validated, informed Rudra Neupane, Information Officer at the Provincial Election Office, Pokhara. According to him, the percentage of invalid votes stands at 2.45 percent.

In Kaski-1, out of 71,806 total votes cast, 69,954 were validated, while 1,852 votes were invalidated. Similarly, in Constituency No. 2, out of 53,395 votes cast, 52,187 were validated, with 1,208 votes being invalidated. In Constituency No. 3, 66,224 votes were cast. Information Officer Neupane stated that 64,586 votes were validated in this constituency, with a total of 1,638 votes being invalidated. The Election Office had conducted voter education programs in all 72 wards of the district from Falgun 3 to 17 to prevent invalid votes.

In the 2079 BS elections in the district, five percent of the votes were invalidated. At that time, out of 178,806 votes cast for the House of Representatives member, 170,344 votes were validated and 8,464 votes were invalidated.

Information Officer Neupane informed that votes were invalidated due to reasons such as applying the 'swastika' mark on one or more symbols on the ballot paper, stamping in the wrong place on the ballot paper, folding the ballot paper incorrectly, and applying the stamp outside the election symbol while stamping.

"The number of invalid votes is much lower this time compared to the previous election. The low number of invalid votes is also due to the voter education program conducted in all wards. However, it appears that voter education has not yet reached completely," Neupane said.