Karnataka voter roll shrinks by nearly one crore after special revision

Karnataka’s final voter list, published on October 27, contains 4,55,00,011 electors, down from 5,54,32,314 before the Special Intensive Revision began. The reduction of 99,32,303 names equals nearly 18 percent of the earlier electorate and is the largest percentage purge reported by any state so far.

The draft roll published on August 24 had recorded about 4.46 crore electors. Claims, objections and verification then produced additions and other changes before the final list was issued.

“A name being removed from a voter list does not, by itself, establish electoral fraud.”

The Special Intensive Revision officially started in Karnataka on June 30, following preparatory work between June 20 and 29. Booth Level Officers visited households and distributed enumeration forms during the exercise.

Under the SIR method, a Booth Level Officer brings an enumeration form to every elector on the roll. The elector signs it and links himself or herself, or a parent, to the 2002 roll. If the form does not come back, the name does not enter the draft roll.

The reduction does not automatically mean that nearly one crore bogus voters were found. Removed entries may include deceased persons, people who shifted residence, duplicate registrations, untraceable electors and other cases requiring scrutiny.

Organiser notes that establishing genuinely fraudulent registrations requires category-wise information and the findings of the verification process. The South First compares the removal with state population figures and suggests that about only 62 lakh people should have been removed instead of nearly one crore.