Nearly 25 lakh 'untraceable' voters in Kerala as SIR enumeration ends

Thiruvananthapuram: As the door to door enumeration of the electoral rolls for Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Kerala ended by Thursday, nearly 25 lakh people among the 2.78 crore persons in the latest voters list were still remaining in the 'untraceable' category.

While the number was over 25 lakh earlier, it could be brought down with the booth level officers coordinating with booth level agents of political parties and tracing as many as possible voters. Hence there could the further drop in the numbers.

Kerala chief electoral officer (CEO) Rathan U Kelkar said that the 24.81 lakh 'untraceable' voters till Thursday morning, which comes to 8.9 percent of the total voters, include 6.89 lakh persons who couldn't be traced at all, 6.49 lakh deceased persons, 8.21 lakh residence shifted persons, 1.34 lakh duplicate entries and 1.86 lakh in other categories. The other categories include those who were unwilling to return filled-up enumeration forms.

The list of untraceable voters were already published online. Since there were attempts to misuse the data for creating confusion among the voters, a police complaint was filed, said the CEO.

Already 100 percent digitisation of the filled up forms were done and those being received till the end of the day (Dec 18) would be considered. The draft list will be published on December 23. Objections can be filed till January 22, 2026 and the final list will be published by February 21. Afterwards a drive for enrolling fresh voters would be also carried out, he said.

The ruling CPM and the opposition Congress in Kerala already raised concern over the high number of untraceable voters and sought more time for the SIR process. The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the election commission to 'sympathetically consider' the request for extending the deadline for SIR.