Decades of neglect, countless errors

The evidence shows that electoral roll inaccuracies are a long-standing, systemic problem, causing a bloated voter roll.

When Rahul Gandhi visited Bengaluru last week, he highlighted the poor quality of electoral rolls across India by picking an example from the Mahadevapura constituency. This issue is not new. Many significant issues have plagued the quality of the electoral rolls of the country for a long time.

Duplicated records and invalid entries were a major problem. Deliberate and accidental deletion of voters due to software and process errors was another problem. In one case, voters from an entire street—BP Wadia Road—were deleted. Postmaster General admitted that his department cannot trace 50% addresses in the electoral rolls.

Many addresses are invalid—just one character long. Several addresses are wrong or do not exist. People are shown in the wrong addresses. Several couples living under one roof are shown in different parts. The one in the wrong address should be legally deleted when BLOs conduct regular reviews, which is part of their duties. Errors in name, spelling, age, sex, relationship, and address are more common.

To find out what exactly is wrong with the electoral rolls, voter data needs to be accessible for analysis. But now, it cannot be searched on PDF voter lists, as they have been only scanned images since 2017. We cannot extract data from these files as they are password-protected. Even if we extract data after Optical Character Recognition (OCR), it takes more than 5 minutes per record on a home PC. With close to 9,000 parts in Bengaluru, the OCR process can take more than a month.

A 2012 public interest litigation had raised the issue of wanton and wrongful deletion of 13.73 lakh voters out of about 65 lakh voters of Bengaluru, in addition to various data quality issues.

The Karnataka High Court, in its judgement, said: “... It appears that the grievances ventilated in the Writ Petitions are well-founded. It is submitted that the deletion of some names has been incorrectly carried out. The Chief Electoral Officer is expected to suo motu look into the issues raised in these proceedings, as also the correctness of deletions that have been carried out…”

After this, the deleted voter IDs were restored.

The problem with the voter roll is not Bengaluru-specific. In a similar instance of missing names of voters in the Lok Sabha voters list, Maharashtra Election Commissioner H S Brahma had apologised to Mumbaikars in 2014.

In 2013, the Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi stated that the electoral rolls of Delhi had about 15 lakh bogus voters, based on a house-to-house survey. There were several cases of duplicate entries. Notices were being sent to all the doubtful cases. That apart, the rolls had about 1.5 lakh EPIC numbers each with multiple records.

Voters have been unaware and ignorant about the changes being made to their elector’s records. Also, it is not easy to find out the details.

For about ten years, Cdr Bikram Satpathi (Retd) has been trying to cleanse the electoral rolls of just two parts in Sarvagnanagar constituency. An email from him to the Assistant Electoral Registration Officer on July 8, 2023, gives the alarmingly large number of false entries in the electoral rolls of parts 177 and 184. Among the 1698 listed voters, only 901 are valid entries. He did not get any other reaction than royal ignorance and insults.

Muted political willpower

I have been active in analysing Karnataka voter rolls for nearly two decades now. In 2013, All India Congress Committee officials told the media that their party functionaries analysed electoral rolls of Karnataka, AP, and Delhi and found numerous errors. In 2014, the information technology head of Congress met with me and discussed in detail the quality issues in the Electoral Roll Management System.

Apart from this, KPCC Secretary and three more members visited me twice at home to discuss the issues and made elaborate notes. However, no follow-up action was taken, and there was no further communication.

I have met some elected MLAs of Bengaluru from multiple political parties and pleaded for their involvement in improving the system.

Co-operation Minister K N Rajanna recently said, “These irregularities happened right in front of our eyes —we should feel ashamed. We didn’t take care of it at the time.” However, he was sacked after this.

If political parties, including Congress, cared about truth, they should have acted at least 18 years ago when they were made aware of the irregularities in the ERMS. There have been newspaper reports, court cases, and the responsibilities of the political parties. While the political parties have several privileges, they should not ignore their responsibilities. It is a privilege, because what they do changes the world; it is a responsibility.

I have also met some election commissioners and presented the issues in ERMS processes. I have offered help in reducing their work and improving the quality of the electoral rolls. They have been personally kind, agreeing with my observations, but apathetic in action. Often, the exposure led to more data denial.

On January 23, 2012, CEC stated, “The Election Commission had made significant progress in making the electoral process more transparent.” In 2014, the chief election commissioner again announced that India would be the first country to have no duplication in the voters’ list.

However, the election commission denies the problems when we show evidence and demonstrate the poor quality of ERMS. Often, they talk about voter apathy. The organisation and data have become more opaque since then.

A claim untrue

Rahul Gandhi’s claim that the voter lists were tampered with just before the elections in 2024 is untrue. The quality of the electoral rolls of Mahadevapura has been poor, just like other constituencies of Bengaluru. Also, it is not possible to give an exact number of duplicate entries in the electoral rolls; we can only give a suspected number.

According to my analysis, voter lists had suspected duplicates and inaccuracies three years before the 2024 election—they were not inserted just before the elections. Some of them might have been deleted by 2025.

For example, in January 2021, the Mahadevapura Constituency had 735 suspected duplicate entries within the same house, 2,144 duplications in the other houses in the same part, and 28,188 duplications in other parts of the constituency. The total number of suspected duplications was 31,067.

As many as 11,555 house numbers were blank, 8.500 houses with house number 0, 2,961 with house number 00 and 20 houses with 000 number. Male voters had “Husband’s Name.” We have cases when a female was listed as male and was denied her right to vote.

In one sample case, when we check the National Voter Service Portal (NSVP) with the EPIC number, the results in English show the voter to be Joseph, S/O Shanthappa, and in English, it is Tejaswini, S/O Mahadev. Yes, Tejawini is male in the rolls.

As many as 409 voters, forming 26.22% of the voter list for part 305 of the Mahadevapura Assembly Constituency, were disqualified from being voters in the new electoral rolls published by the CEO-KA on 11 January 11 2016.

Couples living together are often registered in different parts. They could be deleted during address verification by BLOs as part of their duty. However, BLOs are found only on paper and not in person. Nineteen important duties assigned to them are not undertaken, diluting the quality of ERMS.

Such anomalies have existed there for at least 18 years. There are many such absurd errors and mysteries in the voter lists of all the constituencies, including Mahadevapura.

Beyond partisan politics

The evidence shows that electoral roll inaccuracies are a long-standing, systemic problem affecting multiple states and constituencies.

The focus should be on a collaborative, transparent, and data-driven approach to improve the Electoral Roll Management System, rather than on political accusations that overlook the historical context of the problem.

The absurdities in our electoral system would be comedic if they were not so damaging to democratic integrity. Real electoral integrity requires moving beyond political theatre toward systematic reform.

 Transparency: Electoral rolls must be made available as searchable

digital databases, not password-protected images. Citizens have a fundamental right to verify their democracy’s basic infrastructure.

 Technical modernisation: The ERMS needs a comprehensive overhaul with built-in error detection, duplicate prevention, and regular automated audits.

 Institutional accountability: Officials responsible for electoral roll quality should face consequences for failures, not receive awards. The current culture of impunity must end.

 Cross-party cooperation: All political parties must acknowledge their shared responsibility and work collaboratively rather than exploiting systemic failures for partisan advantage.

 Citizen engagement: Voters need accessible tools to verify their registration details and report discrepancies without bureaucratic obstacles.

Rahul Gandhi’s allegation may generate headlines, but it is a distraction

from the real crisis. India’s electoral rolls have not been tampered with

recently—they have been fundamentally compromised for years, with the complicity of all major political stakeholders.

The solution is not political accusations but sustained commitment to institutional reform. Unless the government officials and politicians value intellectual integrity and humility, it is impossible to fix the voter list.

(The author has been documenting electoral roll quality issues for over 15 years)