300 plaints of errors in voter details

The poll panel has received at least 300 complaints from citizens about mismatching voter ID and wrong listing of names and residential addresses.

Those with complaints include celebrities like former cricketer Rahul Dravid and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw's mother Yamini.

Some citizens discovered to their horror that their addresses and polling booths have changed despite the poll panel getting their EPIC number right. Such mistakes have come up in the past year after they voted in May 2018 during the Assembly elections.

Naina K was shocked to find her EPIC number swapped with someone else's. "I thought voter ID is permanent and can't be changed," she said. I'm worried since I voted with the same EPIC number at the same booth last time."

H C Sharatchandra found six other names in his address. He brought it to the attention of poll officials when they came for verification. "This time, two other names are included in my address," he said.

Naveen M said: "I'm not able to find my name on the voters' list and my EPIC number has also been deleted. The poll officials didn't come to our area for verification and therefore the errors."

Additional Chief Electoral Officer K N Ramesh said such errors could occur if citizens fail to update their epic number regularly. Only a limited number of EPIC IDs are available and if citizens fail to update them, it would be considered unused and assigned to someone else.

Officials have been handling five lakh applications for the past week and that could have also caused some errors, he added.