EC Deletes 1 Million Names From Voter Rolls in Four States

Many voters are either dead or their names have more than one entry in the voters’ list.

Many parties in the four states complained about dead persons’ names in the electoral rolls. (Photo: Reuters)

The Election Commission deleted more than a million voters’ names from the electoral rolls in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam, reports The Times of India.

These voters are either dead or their names have more than one entry in the voters’ list.

Many parties in the four states complained about dead persons’ names in the rolls. Following this the Election Commission announced a process to update the list that was conducted between February 15 and February 29. The maximum number of names were deleting from Tamil Nadu, the list was followed by West Bengal.

The Election Commission, through its software, weeded out dead and duplicate voters. After this we compared the lists given by state political parties and with the final list, a door-to-door verification was carried out as part of a process called National Electoral Roll Purification-2016.

Senior EC official told <i>The Times of India</i>

In Tamil Nadu, the EC prepared three lists. The first list was dead voter names prepared based on the data given by local bodies.

The names were then compared with the electoral roll and after confirming the name and address, booth-level officials and party representatives were sent to houses to check whether the person was alive or not.

Rajesh Lakhoni, Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer

Read the full report here.