Errors galore in voters’ list
SmartVote analysis reveals names have been duplicated at many places
It has emerged that the voters’ list compiled by the State Election Commission for the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) elections is riddled with errors.
Errors ranging from duplication of names of entire wards to duplication of EPIC numbers amongst voters have been found.
SmartVote, a citizens’ initiative in the City, analysed the lists from all 198 wards and discovered that the lists from polling booths have been duplicated at other booths wiping out names of the actual voters. A software was used to scan the lists and detect the omissions, duplication and other glaring errors in the voters’ lists.
But, State Election Commissioner C R Chikkamath maintained that there were no major errors in the list and the errors in the cases of a few wards were being taken care of at the ward level.
Speaking to Deccan Herald Chikkamath said, “We have received complaints only from a few wards. There are some problems, but they are being addressed and the process of correction is already underway.”
But the extent of the problem could be much greater as exact duplication of both lists and voters’ names in effect means that the names of the original voters have been eliminated.
Prithvi Reddy of SmartVote said, “The lists of five polling booths have been exactly duplicated at 19 booths. Further there are innumerable cases of voters’ names being repeated several times in lists across almost all the 198 wards.”
Estimates made by SmartVote say that the duplication of voters’ list alone in effect means that around 20,000 names have been eliminated. Further, the duplication in names of individual voters too will result in several thousand names being omitted.
“My wife’s name is there three times on the list and translates into three votes. According to the lists, my friend’s family of four gets about 14 votes,” Reddy said.
He also expressed concern about the lack of sanctity in the way voters’ lists were prepared but expressed hope that the lists will be corrected in time for the elections.
The analysis of the lists have also revealed that the unique EPIC number has been repeated in a few lakh cases. Further, nearly 44 percent of the the names in voters’ lists across all the wards do not even have the EPIC numbers.
Officials at the ward level said that efforts were on to correct the cases where EPIC numbers have been repeated or omitted and several of them had already been corrected.
