KOCHI: Election Commission has decided to run the entire voters list through Electoral Rolls Services Net (ERONet) to detect duplicate or bogus voters by analysing similar entries, photos and names. The move comes in the wake of allegations of a massive number of bogus voters in the electoral rolls for the state assembly polls.
While the EC is confident of identifying duplicate entries using ERONet, cybersecurity experts ask if the software has such a facility, how the bogus voters have managed to get into the electoral list in the first place. Chief Electoral Officer Teeka Ram Meena said all efforts were on to weed out bogus voters from the list using the ERONet before the polls. “This software is being used across the country for enrolling and verifying the details of applicants. In Kerala also, the commission has been using the software for processing the applications and verification. The process is ongoing,” he said.
An Election Commission of India note says the ERONet has been designed and developed keeping in mind the need for a centralised form processing and monitoring the work of all officials involved in form processing. Cybersecurity expert and Technisanct founder Nandakishore Harikumar said as per the details available in public space, ERONet is the main electoral roll management platform of the EC. One of its main tasks is avoiding duplication.
“Only if we could know more about the backend process of the software, we will be able to clearly state whether this particular software is apt enough to identify duplication and remove it from the roll,” he said. Cybersecurity expert and Data Security Council of India member Manu P Zacharia said “If ERONet has such a facility, then identifying duplicate entries will not be an issue,” he said.