Seeking to maintain secrecy of voting, the Election Commission has directed the returning officer and assistant returning officers to provide voters with a specially designed pen to mark their ballot papers in the presidential polls.

In a direction to Rajya Sabha secretary-general, who is the returning officer for the July 18 poll, and assistant returning officers in states, the EC said "in order to maintain secrecy of voting and to avoid the possibility of identification of voter at the time of counting of votes" in the presidential poll, every elector should be given a "specially designed pen" for marking preferences on the ballot paper.