CHENNAI: The number of first-time voters in Tamil Nadu in the 18-19 age group has increased by around 33.6% from 10.9 lakh, during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, to 14.6 lakh now, as per the figures released by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer in Chennai on Tuesday.
The figures showed that the total size of the electorate, which had shrunk to 5.67 crore in the final roll released after Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, marginally increased by 6.36 lakh to 5.73 crore as of Monday, the last day for filing of nominations.
This is after the addition of those who submitted Form 6 for inclusion after the release of final SIR rolls on February 13. These newly added voters will also be eligible to vote in the upcoming Assembly election.
The sharp increase of first-time voters assumes significance as their proportion of the total electorate has also increased compared to 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Ahead of the LS polls, the first-time voters (18-19 age group) were 1.8% of the electorate of 6.23 crore.
While the total number of voters has now reduced to 5.73 crore due to the SIR exercise, the percentage of first-time electorate has increased from 1.8% to 2.5%.
First-time voters may influence results in multi-cornered contest
Though this was expected since voters of all other age groups faced deletions during SIR, the increase in the proportion of first-time voters may influence electoral outcomes in the multi-cornered contest where all alliances are trying to woo them.
When the final SIR rolls were released on February 13, the number of first-time voters stood at 12.59 lakh. The jump to 14.6 lakh showed that nearly one-third of the 6.36 lakh voters who enrolled since were first-time voters.
Ahead of the SIR, which started in the end of October 2025, the voter population stood at 6.41 crore. After the enumeration phase in December, it shrunk to 5.44 crore with the deletion of 97.34 lakh names.
It increased to 5.67 crore in the final SIR rolls after the completion of the claims and objections phase.
There are 5,73,43,291 voters as of April 6 (Monday). Of this, 2,93,04,905 are women, and 2,80,30,658 are men.
Women, as per the existing trend, outnumbered men by 12.74 lakh.
There are 7,728 transgender voters. Dharmapuri was the only district where men slightly outnumbered women.
CM, EPS, Vijay nominations accepted
Chennai: Of the 7,600 nominations filed, over 4,000, including those of Chief Minister MK Stalin, Deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, NTK leader Seeman and TVK president Vijay (in Perambur and Tiruchy East), have been accepted as valid by election officials