'SIR will help weed out multiple voter ID cards': Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer

Bengaluru: If you are registered as a voter in more than one place or possess more than one voter id card, this is your last chance to surrender the additional cards and escape punishment.

"Some voters have multiple voter id cards – one in home town and other at their place of work. Some others might have forgotten to remove their names from the voterlist when they relocate to a new locality or constituency. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) will help you retain the vote at one place,” said CEO V Anbukumar.

For those holding multiple voter id cards, when the BLO distributes enumeration forms to each address where one is enrolled as a voter, one must submit the enumeration form only at the location or constituency where they wish to retain their vote. “The additional voter id cards will automatically be excluded if you don’t submit the enumeration form, but not without verification by the Booth Level Officer as an absent, shifted, dead or duplicate voter,” added Anbukumar.

The Election Commission for the first time will be digitising the enumeration forms and the draft rolls will help detect duplications by demography or photo similarity software.

Having multiple voter identity cards is an offence liable for punishment (imprisonment) under section 31 of Representation of People’s Act, 1950.