Amid this total uncertainty, they have to depend on the temporary field level staff who are distributing and collecting the forms for inclusion and deletion of names in the existing voter list.

The Election Commission (EC) is also not maintaining any procedure to examine the authenticity of the applications for including names in the voter list. Many field level election officials feared that the accuracy of the voter list may be compromised.

Further, no draft list based on the ongoing task will be published. The EC has repeatedly claimed that there is no scope for publishing a draft voter list.

Although the form for including and deleting names has a provision for providing the applicant with an acknowledgement receipt, the EC has relaxed the provision.

If any of these election officials does not submit the collected applications to the registration officers--who will update the electoral roll based on these forms--the applicants have no scope to lodge claims due to the lack of any document supporting their claims.

"We do not know the legal explanation, but we were asked not to provide the applicants with acknowledgment receipts," Assistant Registration Officer (ARO) Iftekhar Ahmed, also teacher of Dr Muhammad Shahidullah High School in Mirpur, told reporters yesterday. "But people are asking for the receipts after submitting applications," he added.

"How can one claim that he filled in the application form without any document?" assistant official Fazlul Haque said.

Secretary to the EC Secretariat Abdur Rashid Sarkar said the procedure for updating the voter list does not have the scope to give the applicants any acknowledgement receipts as supervisors are not working for updating the voter list.

"People can check if their names are on the voter list when we display it after completing the task," the secretary told reporters yesterday at his office.

However, many election officials said prospective voters have always been provided with the acknowledgement receipts in the past, even while updating the voter list.

"The procedures are similar for preparing the voter list afresh and revise it," a senior official at the EC Secretariat told The Daily Star. "But we are following a procedure applicable for a small-scale task," he added.

The official said those who came to the offices of ARO from July 11 to apply for including their names in the voter list were provided with receipts against their applications.

The procedure for updating the voter list sitting at the election offices also maintained a register of the names of the applicants and provided them with the serial number of their applications.

But the assistant officials who are now distributing and collecting forms for inclusion and deletion of names are not maintaining any such record.

According to the Manual for Voter Registration and Preparation of a Voter List published by the EC, the enumerators should go from door to door and collect information about prospective voters using only one type of form. The supervisors will then examine the information collected by the enumerators and provide the applicants with acknowledgement receipts. The AROs are also supposed to examine at least a random ten per cent of the collected information.

Then a draft voter list will be published for people's inspection, inviting claims and objections. The updating authorities will then settle the claims and objections. The final voter list will be published after that.

Legal and election experts said the EC should follow the same procedure for updating the existing voter list.

FLOATING PEOPLE
Meanwhile, several lakh floating people will not be able to register their names in the voter list as the election officials will not visit them.

"It is very difficult to list the floating people as voters since they do not have any permanent address," the secretary to the EC Secretariat said.

He, however, said the slum dwellers will be registered as voters.