Digitising India’s Voter Rolls: Challenges, Reforms, and the Path Ahead
CONTEXT
The Election Commission of India (EC) is facing criticism over its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Reliance on outdated paper-based records threatens voter inclusion, the integrity of upcoming elections, and undermines decades of digital progress in electoral management.
PROBLEMS WITH THE CURRENT SIR
PAPER-BASED PROCESS
- SIR relies on legacy rolls from 2002–2004, created manually before India’s digital transition
- Manual processes are slow, error-prone, and inefficient
DEPENDENCE ON OUTDATED RECORDS
- EC continues to use obsolete records, ignoring decades of digital progress
- SIR 2.0 is forced to work with unreliable and unverifiable data
LEGACY ISSUES
- Past SIRs focused on deletions and additions of voters with little effort to update records
- Rolls contain incomplete, ambiguous, and inconsistent data, varying across States
COMMON ERRORS AND ANOMALIES
- Missing surnames, EPIC numbers, house numbers, and spelling errors (e.g., Agarwal/Agraval, Rakesh/Rakeash)
- Some entries suggest impossible scenarios like polygamy
- Many voters cannot find their names despite previous participation in elections
DIFFICULTIES IN VERIFICATION
- Paper rolls with over 600 million entries cannot undergo full verification
- EC’s search interface often returns “no details found”
- Legacy data leaves many genuine voters excluded
UNDERUTILISATION OF DIGITAL TOOLS
ECINET CAPABILITIES
- Database of over 1 billion records, searchable via multiple parameters
- Detects duplicate or missing entries, supports registration, deletion, corrections, Aadhaar linking, and polling booth location
- Online Enumeration Form submission is supported with Aadhaar-based verification
ISSUES WITH BLOS
- BLOs function mainly as paper form collectors
- Many lack digital skills, leaving over 50% of EFs undigitised in Uttar Pradesh
- Paper forms create a double workload, errors, and costs for voters
SOLUTIONS TO MAKE SIR FULLY DIGITAL
SEARCHABLE DIGITAL ROLLS
- Convert all rolls into fully searchable digital format, standardising English for queries while retaining regional languages
DATA INTEGRATION
- Merge legacy data with Aadhaar, PAN, driving licence, and local body records
- Strengthen Aadhaar as identity anchor
VOTER CLASSIFICATION
- Categorise voters into stable-address voters, frequent movers, and those with immigration/nationality issues
ONLINE EF SUBMISSION AND VERIFICATION
- Complete EF submission, verification, uploads, and post-validation entirely online
- Deploy mobile digital kiosks with trained staff for non-tech-savvy voters
CONCLUSION
A fully digital SIR would eliminate flaws of legacy systems, enable real-time grievance redressal, improve speed, reliability, and transparency, and ensure inclusion of all eligible voters. SIR 2026 must become a technology-driven trust revolution for India’s electoral process.
Source : The Hindu