Now that polling is complete in Bihar and only the people’s mandate remains to be ascertained on counting day, it is safe to explore some issues relating to voter lists that have cropped up this year, without being accused of undermining voter morale in the middle of an election.

The special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, first conducted in Bihar and now being rolled out across 12 states and union territories by the Election Commission of India (ECI), has led to opposition parties, MPs and electoral reform advocates filing multiple petitions, being heard by the Supreme Court of India.

Examples of what appear to be allegations of wrongdoing in the updating of voter lists were shared by the leader of the opposition Rahul Gandhi in several press conferences. A common theme cutting across all these endeavours is ‘transparency’ or, more accurately, the perceived opacity of critical information. Of late, this essential ingredient of rule-based and accountable governance has been in short supply.

We must begin with what the rule book says about transparency of the electoral rolls, commonly known as voter lists, so that readers may debate this issue in an informed manner.

Which laws enable the ECI to do its job?

Many might not know that two laws, both with the same title, codify how to prepare for and conduct elections in India. The first is the Representation of the People Act enacted in 1950 (RPA, 1950), before the first parliamentary elections in 1952.

This law contains provisions for determining the number of seats in the Lok Sabha and the vidhan sabhas, marking the territorial boundaries of constituencies from which MPs will be elected (delimitation), how to fill seats in the Rajya Sabha and demarcating constituencies for vidhan parishads in states with a bicameral legislature – Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh. This law also provides for the manner in which electoral rolls will be prepared for elections to all these bodies and lays down the powers and duties of officers appointed specifically for this purpose.

The Representation of the People Act, 1951 (RPA, 1951), lays down the qualifying and disqualifying criteria for membership of the central and state level legislatures, the procedures for conducting elections, the manner of voting and the method of counting votes as well as announcing the results of elections and the powers and duties of all officers involved in this process. RPA 1951 also provides for the registration of political parties and the regulation of their accounts.

In effect, these two laws and the rules and regulations made under them enable the ECI to perform its mandated functions under Part XV (Article 324) of the Constitution.

Preparation of electoral rolls

The Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 (RoER) approved by Parliament under RPA, 1950, contain the detailing of the manner in which voter lists are to be prepared and revised by the electoral bureaucracy, from time to time. Obviously, the electoral rolls were prepared for the first time in India prior to the 1952 Lok Sabha election. So, RoER contains very elaborate provisions for the preparation of electoral rolls, and states that those provisions will apply, with alterations as may be necessary, for revising them from time to time.

According to the ECI’s Manual on Electoral Rolls (2023 edition, pp. 48-50), there are four types of revision of electoral rolls in addition to continuous updation:

• Intensive revision: This exercise means, the rolls will be prepared afresh, without reference to the earlier existing roll. Enumerators/Booth Level Officers (BLOs) first visit every house in a polling station area allotted to them to serially number them. The next visit is to note down on an electoral card all relevant particulars of the eligible individuals (at least 18 years old, citizens of India and otherwise not declared ineligible to vote like people who are declared insolvent or unsound of mind by a competent court and those who are in jail as undertrials or convicts). A copy of this card is handed over to the head of the household or any other adult member. The Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) prepares a draft list and publishes it inviting claims for inclusion or objections to the entries. After the disposal of such claims and objections, the final roll is published.
• Summary revision: This exercise means, simply updating the existing voter lists without doing house-to-house enumeration. The ERO prepares a list of amendments to the existing voter list based on available information and publishes the draft list inviting claims and objections. After the disposal of such claims and objections, the final roll is published.
• Special summary revision: The ECI may order a special summary revision of existing voter lists by a written order, giving reasons for conducting this exercise, such as, inaccuracies in the rolls, or a failure to cover any place, locality or block or any section of voters. The ECI may order house-to-house verification, though this is not compulsory. BLOs may also be authorised to arrange reading out of the draft roll at gram sabhas (village assemblies) or ward committee meetings. The ECI’s 2023 Manual states that the Commission generally orders special summary revision every year. These campaigns are organised on weekends and holidays to enable people to visit the designated locations to inspect the draft roll or deposit their claims and objections, in addition to the normal practice of filing them with the EROs. After this process is completed and all claims and objections have been decided upon, the final electoral rolls are published.
• Partly intensive and partly summary revision: In this exercise, the existing voter lists are published in draft form. Enumerators/BLOs are sent to the households for verification. After all claims and objections are disposed, supplementary lists of additions, deletions and corrections are prepared and published together with the main (mother) roll.

The ECI did not invent these methods of voter list revision on its own. Rule 25(1) of RoER empowers it to conduct these four types of revision. However, what is the legal basis of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, first conducted in Bihar and now being rolled out across the 12 States and UTs and eventually intended to cover the entire country?

Also read: Interview | Behind Bihar's Record Turnout, Shifting Loyalties, Persistent Poverty Could Tip the Assembly Scales

I have no answer to this question, as there is no mention of SIR of the kind we have seen this year in either the RPA, 1950 or RoER. This is one of the issues which petitioners who have challenged the two SIR exercises have raised in the Supreme Court. Also, the recent discussions in a section of civil society and electoral reform advocates about including a social audit process to make the voter lists more accurate, can build on the already existing Special Summary Revision method to make it more robust.

Transparency of voter lists

Tech-savvy readers who can verify their entries in the voter lists know that they can locate their details by visiting the Voter Rolls Web Portal of the ECI. It is linked to the websites of the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of the states and Union Territories and, possibly, websites of the District Election Officers (DEOs) as well. However, the RoER contains specific provisions for those who are digitally unserved. Rule 10 requires the ERO to publish the draft rolls as soon as they are ready in his/her office, if it is located within the constituency, or at such public place if the office is outside the constituency, inviting people to inspect the same by issuing a notice.

Rule 11 also empowers the ERO to make parts of the electoral rolls available for public inspection at a public place in relation to the areas to which it relates by giving notice to the public. Rule 22 provides for the publication of a copy of the final electoral roll, together with a list of amendments incorporated, at the ERO’s office, by giving the public formal notice of the same. So, the RoER places enormous emphasis on the transparency of the voter list revision process – all four of them. These three rules are reproduced below:

Rule 10

10. Publication of roll in draft. – As soon as the roll for a constituency is ready, the registration officer shall publish it in draft by making a copy thereof available for inspection and displaying a notice in Form 5 –

(a) at his office, if it is within the constituency, and

(b) at such place in the constituency as may be specified by him for the purpose, if his office is outside the constituency.”

Rule 11:

11. Further publicity to the roll and notice. – The registration officer shall also –

(a) make a copy of each separate part of the roll, together with a copy of the notice in Form 5 available for inspection at a specified place accessible to the public and in or near the area to which that part relates;

(b) give such further publicity to the notice in Form 5 as he may consider necessary; and

(c) supply free of cost two copies of each separate part of the roll to every political party for which a symbol has been exclusively reserved in the State by the Election Commission.

Rule 22:

Final publication of roll. – (1) The registration officer shall thereafter –

(a) prepare a list of amendments to carry out his decisions under rules 18, 20, 21 and 21A and to correct any clerical or printing errors or other inaccuracies subsequently discovered in the roll;

(b) publish the roll, together with the list of amendments, by making a complete copy thereof available for inspection and displaying a notice in Form 16 at his office; and

(c) subject to such general or special directions as may be given by the Election Commission supply, free of cost, two copies of the roll, as finally published, with the list of amendments, if any, to every political party for which a symbol has been exclusively reserved by the Election Commission.

(2) On such publication, the roll together with the list of amendments shall be the electoral roll of the constituency.

(3) Where the roll (hereafter in this sub-rule referred to as the basic roll), together with the list of amendments, becomes the electoral roll for a constituency under sub-rule (2), the registration officer may, for the convenience of all concerned, integrate, subject to any general or special directions issued by the Election Commission in this behalf, the list into the basic roll by incorporating inclusion of names, amendment, transposition or deletion of entries in the relevant parts of the basic roll itself] in the relevant parts of the basic roll itself, so however that no change shall be made in the process of such integration in the name of any elector or in any particulars relating to any elector as given in the list of amendments.”

Political parties’ access to voter rolls

During his press conferences, Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly levelled three allegations against the ECI about his party’s access to voter rolls. First, he said that the voter lists are supplied only a few days before the actual day of polling, so it is impossible to verify if all entries are genuine or not.

As shown above, Rules 11(c) and 22(c) of RoER clearly specify that two copies of both the draft roll and the final roll must be supplied to recognised political parties. The Indian National Congress (INC) is a recognised political party with its own reserved symbol. So the party is entitled to receive copies of both the draft rolls and the final rolls even before the election schedule is announced. Paragraph No. 11.1.4(v) of the ECI’s Manual of Electoral Rolls (MoER) states:

Meeting with political parties: "The programme of Draft Publication and the places at which the relevant part of the draft roll would be displayed for public inspection should be intimated in writing at least one week in advance to the recognised political parties, local bodies like panchayats, municipalities, corporations etc., Members of Parliament and State Legislative Assembly. After the draft publication, a meeting of the recognised state/national political parties be called by Electoral Registration Officer, District Election Officer and Chief Electoral Officer and copies of draft roll be shared with them. The parties should be requested to scrutinise and give their suggestions within the stipulated time frame.” (emphasis added)

Further, paragraph 11.3.5 states: "List of claims and objections should be made available by the Electoral Registration Officer to all recognised political parties at the end of every week from the beginning of the period of filing claims and objections. The Electoral Registration Officer should call a meeting of all recognised political parties and personally handover to their representatives a list of claims and objections received till that date and obtain acknowledgement of the same. The practice of giving list of claims and objections to the recognised political parties should continue till the period of claims and objections is over….” (emphasis added)

Further, paragraph 11.7.7 reiterates the provisions of the RoER with regard to the supply of copies of the final rolls as follows:

“As per Rule 22(c), two copies of the final roll will be given, free of cost, to all the recognised political parties.” (emphasis added)

So, the EROs have the duty to follow a clearly laid down procedure of engaging with the recognised political parties to ensure transparency of both the draft voter list and the final list. Either the ECI must disclose evidence of compliance with these procedures and the timely supply of copies to the INC to counter this allegation of late disclosure, or the INC must explain why it did not demand its right to obtain copies by going to the courts if Rules 1(c) and 22 (c) complaining that these procedures had not been complied with.

Of course, new names can be added to the voter lists for up to ten days prior to the last date for withdrawing nominations. But these additions will be a small sub-set of the overall voter lists, so it might not to be too difficult to verify the genuineness of the newly enrolled voters by exercising the rights available to political parties with regard to accessing claims and objections as explained above.

Also read: Voter Rolls and the Crisis of Trust in Indian Elections

Second, Gandhi has alleged in his press conferences that his party is given only scanned copies of printouts of the voter rolls instead of machine-readable copies. The RoER is silent on this issue. However, the ECI’s MoER explains what is required to be done. Reiterating the contents of the paragraphs extracted above, the 2023 edition of the MoER states as follows at paragraph 11.7.8:

(iv) Two copies of complete set of draft Electoral Rolls and Final Electoral Rolls immediately after draft and final publication respectively shall be supplied free of cost to recognized political parties in accordance with the provisions of rule 11(c) and 22 (c) of Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. (Please refer to para 25.3 of Chapter 25 of Manual on Electoral Rolls, 2016 for detailed guidelines in the matter.) (emphasis supplied)

For reasons best known to itself, in the 2023 edition of its own MoER, the ECI has not bothered to reproduce the detailed provisions for supply of copies of voter lists to recognised political parties, which was contained in its 2016 edition.

Strangely, the 2016 edition. is also not accessible on the ECI’s main website or its archives portal. However, the 2016 edition. continues to be displayed on the website of the CEO of Jammu and Kashmir. As the 2023 edition states that para 25.3 of the 2023 edition will continue to apply to the issue of providing copies of electoral rolls to recognised political parties, let us see what the ECI’s instructions are on this subject:

“25.3.3 The expression ‘copy’ includes ‘soft copy’ and the Election Commission has decided that one soft pdf copy and one hard print copy of the electoral roll can be shared with political parties…

25.3.5 The aforesaid rule does not make any distinction between the intensive revision and summary revision of electoral roll. Therefore, even during summary revision the Electoral Registration Officer shall supply, free of cost, 2 copies of complete set of electoral roll (mother roll together with all supplements including the last part or integrated roll as the case may be) published as draft roll to all recognised political parties.

25.3.6 Rule 22(c) makes a similar provision for stage of final publication of electoral roll. The Election Commission shall supply, free of cost, 2 copies of complete set (complete set would mean draft roll with all supplements, if any including the last part) of the roll, as finally published with the list of amendments, if any, to every recognised political party in the state. All other instructions with regard to supply of draft roll mentioned in the preceding paragraphs also apply here. (emphasis added)

It is crystal clear from these extracts that the EROs have the duty to provide soft copy (pdf) files which, by inference, must be machine readable. Either the ECI must disclose evidence of compliance with these procedures and the timely supply of machine-readable copies of the voter lists to the INC to counter this allegation of non-disclosure, or the INC must explain why it did not demand its right to obtain such copies by going to the courts, if these procedures had not been complied with.

Political parties’ access to photo voter rolls

The 2016 edition of the MoER prohibits the supply of voter rolls containing photographs of the enrolled voters to recognised political parties, after the revision exercise is completed. Paragraph 25.3.4 states:

“Further, the Election Commission has directed that the soft pdf copy of electoral roll shall not have the photographs against the elector’s details – instead only an indication whether photo is available or not shall be given against the elector detail. In hard (print) copy the photographs may be there.” (emphasis added)

However, the ECI makes photo electoral rolls available to contesting candidates within three days of the last date for the withdrawal of nominations and the finalisation of the candidates list. Paragraph 25.4 of the 2016 edition of the MoER states:

“The Election Commission has directed that one complete copy of electoral roll shall be supplied, free of cost, to the contesting candidates of recognised political parties during general elections under the provisions of Section 78A of the RPA, 1951. The copy of electoral roll to be supplied to contesting candidates should be identical to the copy of electoral roll given to the Presiding Officers...” (emphasis added)

Further, paragraph 25.5.1 of the 2016 edition of the MoER states:

“At the time of poll, pdf of the alphabetical electoral roll in the forms of CDs/DVDs can be provided to the contesting candidates by the office of Returning Officer/District Election Officer, on demand and payment basis. The Chief Electoral Officer concerned shall decide prices of such printed electoral roll CDs/DVDs and it shall be notified by the respective District Election Officer for the constituencies falling within his district.

25.5.2 It should be clearly mentioned on the label of CDs/DVDs/on each page of electoral roll that this is only a locater for convenience of electors and not the statutory electoral roll and shall not be used for statutory purposes.” (emphasis added)

Also read: Verification or Disenfranchisement? People in Bengal, Tamil Nadu Struggle With SIR

In other words, contesting candidates get voter lists with photographs of the enrolled voters and also machine-readable lists arranged in the alphabetical order of the names of voters. Do these soft copies contain photos of the enrolled voters or not, is not clear. Further, paragraph 25.6 of the 2016 edition of the MoER recognises the right of MLAs to get copies of the voter lists on CDs in soft copy, as follows:

25.6.1 There is no objection to supply of printed copies of electoral roll and the CDs, free of cost, to the MLAs provided the state government concerned agrees to bear the expenses for printing of these additional copies of electoral roll. The additional requirement of copies of electoral roll to the MLAs can be taken up for printing separately and this should not be a cause for delay in publication of electoral roll on due dates appointed by the Election Commission.

25.6.2 In case such demand is made by Members of State Legislature of any state, then the Secretary of the State Legislature concerned should inform the Chief Electoral Officer concerned in writing with an undertaking that the expenditure for printing of the additional copies of the electoral roll shall be borne by the state government. (emphasis added)

The 2016 edition of the MoER does not clarify whether MLAs have the right to get soft copies of the voter lists along with photographs. However, let us look at paragraph 25.7 of this edition of the MoER:

“The Election Commission has directed that unrecognised registered political parties/NGOs/ public may be provided soft copy of electoral roll (without images of electors) in CD in pdf format on a nominal price of Rs. 100/- only per CD, containing electoral roll of an Assembly Constituency, on request.” (emphasis added).

So, the bar on the supply of photo voter lists, applicable to other registered parties and NGOs or members of the general public on payment of fees, is missing from the paragraph relating to the supply of copies to MLAs. This is clearly a grey area. Therefore, there is considerable truth in the claim made by the INC that getting photo voter lists so late prevents them from cross checking the veracity of the entries.

The ECI must clarify whether MLAs can be given copies of the photo voter lists on payment of fee by the state government. The recognised political parties in the opposition ought to test this provision and go to the court, if they have not done so already.

Conclusion

The statutory provisions and the ECI’s procedural guidelines clarify certain aspects of the problem of transparency of voter lists, such as access to machine readable copies, and leave some others – such as access to soft copies of photo voter lists – in the twilight zone, lacking clarity.

When this author came across social media reports of one voter being listed six times in the voter list of a polling station in Nalasopara Vidhan Sabha constituency in Maharashtra, last year, checking the veracity of this claim was very easy even in the absence of photographs.

Yes, the discrepancy’s existence was proven by our research on the ECI’s voter list portal and that study’s findings went viral in these columns, in August this year. But it was not possible to do a similar exercise with the voter list of Rai Vidhan Sabha constituency in Haryana, where Gandhi has claimed that a non-Indian woman’s photo figured more than 20 times on the voter list. It was impossible to do any desk-based cross verification using only the non-photographic details in the voter list. In the absence of photographs, all other entries appeared quite genuine.

So this raises a question – should photo voter lists be hidden from voters themselves in the name of protecting their privacy when allegations of corrupted voter rolls are too strong to ignore? In Nalasopara, those who fudged the voter list were less sophisticated than those who corrupted the voter list in Rai, depriving agency for civil society actors or electoral reform advocates to verify the allegedly bogus entries.

Protecting the personal privacy of voters is an important public interest, no doubt. But should it be allowed to trump the other important public interest of ensuring accurate electoral rolls – which is the very foundation of free and fair elections? Readers must debate these competing public interests and try resolve this dilemma in a manner that makes our democracy stronger.

Venkatesh Nayak is Director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi. Views expressed are personal.

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