SIR: Over 99.32 lakh names struck off voter list in Karnataka

Karnataka’s final electoral roll under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has been published, with constituency-wise lists of voters now available on the Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO) website. The list can be accessed here. 

The State’s electorate now stands at 4,55,00,011, down from 5,54,32,314 voters before the SIR began. More than 99.32 lakh names have been knocked off the rolls, as part of the exercise that was launched with the stated aim of ensuring that every eligible voter was included and every ineligible name removed to achieve a ‘pure, clean electorate’. 

At the draft stage, the electorate had shrunk from 5.54 crore to 4.46 crore, with over 1.07 crore names deleted. The final roll has seen a net addition of 8.64 lakh names compared with the draft roll. Net additions overall remain far lower than the number of names deleted at the draft stage, leaving close to one crore fewer voters on the final roll than before the SIR.

The final electorate comprises over 2.25 crore male voters, 2.29 crore female voters, and 2,841 third-gender voters. It includes over 6.83 lakh young voters aged 18-19, and more than 3.92 lakh voters aged above 85. 

Those who applied for inclusion through Form-6 after September 23, the end of the claims and objections period, will be included in supplementary lists, which will be published every quarter after the SIR. The names of those who applied for inclusion within the claims and objections window will be included in the final roll. 

The office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Karnataka has said that an enrolment drive will be taken up after the SIR to add genuine voters whose names were deleted during the exercise. 

The deletions

During the draft roll stage, 16.39 lakh names were deleted on the ground that the voters were dead, while over seven lakh were identified as duplicate entries. Another 3.83 lakh names were deleted under the ‘Others’ category, which is not seen in many other States that conducted the SIR.

Even as the exercise comes to an end, the CEO’s office has not clearly explained what the ‘Others’ category comprises, apart from stating that it includes people who refused to sign.

However, the largest category of deletions — 80.62 lakh names — comprised voters who had shifted residence or were not found at their addresses during the enumeration phase. Unlike those identified as dead or duplicate, these voters were not necessarily ineligible to vote. They would have had to apply through Form 6 to have their names restored to the rolls. Yet, only 7,87,534 applications for inclusion were received, a figure that also includes applications from new voters.

Objections from election officials

At least 61,059 Form-7 applications seeking the deletion of names from Karnataka’s electoral rolls were filed by election officials themselves, with not a single application mentioning a reason for the deletion, a mandatory requirement under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.

Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs), listed as the objectors in these applications, said the system “auto-generated” the forms with their digital signatures when voters could not be reached during hearings on notices issued for no mapping or logical discrepancies, and the voters were therefore marked as “ineligible”.

This meant the same election machinery was raising objections to voters’ names and deciding on whether they should remain on the rolls. Under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 an objection that is not filed in the prescribed manner, including stating the reason, is liable to be rejected.