Dehradun: More than 4% of the total votes polled in the civic elections across the state were declared invalid affecting candidates’ prospects in at least seven seats. Of the almost 15 lakh votes polled, around 60,000 were declared invalid according to statistics made available by the state election commission.The impact of invalid votes was felt most in the election for the post of chairman of Doiwala Nagar Palika in chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat’s own constituency. BJP lost the seat by less than 200 votes. According to state election commission figures, the total number of invalid votes here were 1784. BJP also lost the Haridwar mayor seat by a margin of slightly more than 3427 votes while the number of invalid votes in the seat was almost 7300.According to officials of the election commission, a vote is declared invalid if the counting agent cannot decide who the voter has given his vote to. “In case the counting agent is not sure of the stamp marked against a symbol or if the ballot paper is empty or smudged in ink, the counting agent declares that vote to be invalid,” said Roshan Lal, secretary, state election commission.The most number of invalid votes were cast in the Dehradun Municipal Corporation (DMC) area. Of the 4.75 lakh votes cast here, 19,465 were invalid. Interestingly, in the last civic elections, DMC had not recorded any invalid votes.Meanwhile, the ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) option which was introduced for the first time in urban local bodies of the state failed to make a mark in the elections. Only about 0.5% of the total votes polled were NOTA. Chamoli was the only district where the NOTA percentage was a little more, at around 1.65%.According to Lal, the NOTA votes were expected to be lower in civic elections since “people generally know candidates at a personal level and make up their mind about whom they will vote for.”

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