Election Commission plans to reform electoral roll revision

Bengaluru: The Election Commission is likely to remove the process of providing hard copies of documents to the booth-level officer (BLO), while registering for the voting process. The BLO is often accused of shirking such duties, resulting in rejection of applications. There have also been other complaints about duplication of names and usage of improper verification methods during electoral roll revisions. In response to this, the EC is expected to introduce many such reforms to make the process of voter registration easier.

Currently, voters can apply online by uploading soft copies of the required documents and later, submitting the hard copies to the BLO. Residents’ welfare associations in Bengaluru have accused BLOs of never collecting the hard copies. Further, if the documents are submitted voluntarily at the BBMP office, it is never acknowledged. Later, the application gets rejected on the grounds that the hard copies were not submitted. This issue has been brought to the notice of the Election Commission by Whitefield Rising.

Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar said that door-to-door verification is difficult in Bengaluru because many multi-storeyed housing complexes do not allow entry to officials. But, he said that the Commission will bring in changes and reiterated the fact that the BLO will only have to come and verify the voters. He also said that more non-governmental organisations will be roped in to ensure door-to-door verification. This would significantly improve the quality of electoral rolls, he said.

As a matter of fact, experts believe that the low percentage of voting recorded in Bengaluru may not be true because of the anomalies in the electoral rolls. There are things like non-deletion of names that are dead or have migrated and duplication of names, which have to be considered in this regard. Kumar promised that these anomalies will be worked on and improved in June, in preparation for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.