Of the 2.45 lakh overseas electors, who were eligible to vote in the recently concluded Assembly polls in four states and one UT, only 20,383 of them actually exercised their franchise.Notably, only one of the 157 registered NRI voters turned up to vote in West Bengal, while none of the 23 electors voted in Assam.According to the data released by the Election Commission of India, only 16 of the 2,730 overseas voters registered in Tamil Nadu voted in the recently held elections. In Kerala, which has the highest number of overseas voters (2,42,093), only 20,366 exercised their franchise.Considering the fact that an overseas elector has to cast his or her vote in person at the polling station, Kerala numbers are the most encouraging as more than 20,000 electors actually visited the state from various parts of the world to cast to vote.According to the EC, an overseas elector is a person who is a citizen of India and has not acquired citizenship of any other country and is otherwise eligible to be registered as a voter but is absent from his or her place of ordinary residence in India, owing to his or her employment, education or otherwise is eligible to be registered as a voter in the constituency in which his or her place of residence in India as mentioned in the passport is located.As per the provisions of Section 20A of the Representation of People Act, 1950, an NRI settled in foreign land can become an elector in electoral roll in India.An overseas (NRI) elector is not issued an EPIC (voter ID) as he or she is allowed to cast his vote in an election in the constituency, in person at the polling station on production of his or her original passport.After enrolment, an overseas (NRI) elector can cast vote in an election in the constituency, in person, at the polling station provided for the part where the person is registered as an overseas (NRI) elector.NRI voters have long demanded that they should be allowed to vote online during the Assembly or General Elections in India. However, no such decision has been taken in this regard by the government as of now.