CHENNAI: As the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is under way in nine states and three union territories despite concerns being raised by many, a data-driven deep dive into the deletion of 97.4 lakh voters during the enumeration phase of the exercise in TN has shown several alarming trends.
Starting today, TNIE, through a series of articles, will explore these trends, which highlight the strong possibility of mass and unintended deletions, and elucidate the need for the Election Commission of India (ECI) to thoroughly examine its processes.
Tamil Nadu’s electorate of 6.41 crore shrunk by roughly 15% to 5.44 crore in the draft SIR rolls published on December 19. An analysis of a sample of 1,500 polling booths showed that the sum of percentage of those who voted and the percentage of those who got deleted added closer to or even exceeded 100%, strongly indicating the deletion of several eligible voters in the SIR exercise.
This figure was only around 83% when looked at the state-level. Similarly, the 10% increase in polling stations in the middle of SIR has confused not only voters but political party agents as details like the changes to booth numbers and whether a booth has been divided into two or more have not been made public.
Analysis showed the inefficiency of ECI’s software systems to de-duplicate voter lists and lack of clear instructions, leading to deletions in sweeping strokes.
While stating that she would look into these alleged anomalies, Chief Electoral Officer Archana Patnaik emphasised that officials have been working with parties and reaching out to the public to ensure all eligible voters are included in the final SIR rolls. She said even in the unlikely case of some eligible voters getting omitted, subsequent inclusions are possible as updating rolls is a continuous process.