Mumbai: Two-third of Armymen will exercise their franchise at the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls through the newly introduced 'proxy voting'.

Under the new system, service voters can nominate a person of their choice who can vote in confidence as proxy at the booth where these service voters are registered as voters.

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Of the 11.98 lakh approximate eligible service voters in the Indian Army, over 8.18 lakh (nearly 68.35 percent) have furnished documents to the Election Commission for proxy voting, a release issued by the Ministry of Defence, in Mumbai said today (Apr 19, 2004).

Thus, the nominees of these 8.18 lakh servicemen may be their wives, husbands or even trusted relatives and friends will press button of the electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the Lok Sabha polls commencing tomorrow.

Rest 1.92 lakh service voters (23.51 percent of total service voters) who have not applied for proxy voting will continue to vote through postal ballots, the release added.

According to the MoD, the Army Headquarters has taken several issues to the Election Commission to bring in more service voters in the list of proxy voters.

These issues include bringing wives within purview of proxies, inclusion of 'spouse' in the definition of service voter instead of 'wives', dependents of service voters be allowed as proxies, and commissioned officers be allowed to authenticate signatures of proxies.