Election Commission of India transparency concerns over voter roll revisions

An investigation by The Reporters’ Collective has found that the Election Commission of India (ECI) withheld details regarding 16.18 lakh voter applications in Uttar Pradesh prior to the publication of the draft Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The analysis of 71.38 lakh Form 6 applications across 403 Assembly constituencies revealed that 84.3 lakh voters were added to the final electoral roll, which is 12.92 lakh more than the number of applications disclosed on the official website.

In response to these findings, the India Freedom Fund (IFF) has filed Right to Information (RTI) applications with the ECI and the Chief Electoral Officers of Delhi and West Bengal. These applications seek transparency regarding software rules, data practices, and contracts for systems like ERONET 2.0 and ECINET. The requests also aim to uncover the criteria used to flag electors for discrepancies, the decision-making process behind discarding de-duplication software, and the specific number of individuals excluded, noticed, or restored during the revision process.