The Election Commission of India (ECI), in October 2025, introduced the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) initiative to refine electoral rolls across 12 states and union territories, involving over 510 million potential voters. The process mandates that individuals verify their identity—or that of a blood relation—using data from the 2002–2005 electoral records.
While this approach aims to modernize and purify voter databases, its dependency on decades-old information has triggered critical challenges, including legal disputes, technical glitches, and societal tensions. Vulnerable populations—such as youth, internal migrants, women, sex workers, transgender persons, orphans, individuals whose parents failed to include their names in earlier electoral rolls due to ignorance or other reasons, and marginalized communities—are especially prone to such complications, heightening the risk of unintended disenfranchisement and creating significant barriers to meaningful democratic participation.
Under Section 16 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, disqualification for voter registration is limited to non-citizenship, court-declared unsound mind, or temporary disqualification for electoral offences. Outdated rolls and migration do not constitute disqualifications, yet the 2025–26 SIR risks burdensome verification for lawfully enrolled young and mobile voters.
Critical Flaws and Systemic Gaps in Voter Registration
- Obsolescence of Outdated Voter Rolls and Shifting Demographics: The 2002–2005 electoral rolls, now over two decades old, predate significant demographic shifts across India. Millions of adults who came of age after 2005, those registered later, and 400–600 million internal migrants are disconnected from these records. This creates systemic disadvantages for young voters and mobile populations while imposing unnecessary verification hurdles on individuals already lawfully enrolled.
- Absence of Contemporary Identification Systems: The 2002–2005 data was compiled before the era of Aadhaar, standardized Voter ID (EPIC) numbers, or biometric enrolment. Today, name verification relies on rudimentary details like partial names, approximate ages, familial relationships, and vague addresses. Even minor discrepancies can trigger mismatches, lacking robust identifiers (e.g., Aadhaar) to confirm individual identities accurately.
- Incomplete and Inequitable Initial Registration: The original 2002–2005 rolls allegedly systematically excluded marginalized groups, including labor migrants, urban residents in poverty, nomadic communities, and tribal populations. These omissions stemmed from inadequate manpower, poor planning, and limited outreach. Requiring current voters to align with these flawed records perpetuates historical inequities, incorrectly labelling many legitimate voters as “unverified.”
- Linguistic and Spelling Variability in Name Recording: India’s linguistic diversity and spelling conventions (e.g., Banerji/Banerjee/Bandopadhyay, Mukherji/Mukherjee/Mukhopadhyay, Chatterji/Chatterjee/Chattopadhyay, Mondal/ Mandal/Mondol, Md., , Muhammad, Mohammed, Mohammad/ /Sheikh, Sk, Seikh. Sekh, Ahmed/Ahmad etc) lead to inconsistent name entries. Abbreviations, generational name shifts, and marital surname changes further complicate matches. These trivial disparities in records from the 2000s cause automated systems or officials to flag legitimate voters as “unmatched,” disproportionately impacting women and communities with common name variations.
- Inaccurate Age and Birth Date Data: Approximate or unverified birth years, common for individuals lacking formal documentation—especially in rural or economically disadvantaged areas—create mismatches. Even a 1–2-year discrepancy during legacy linkage now disqualifies voters, forcing elderly and marginalized groups to navigate bureaucratic hurdles with limited proof of age.
- Dependence on Inaccurate and Outdated Address Information: Early voter rolls often relied on informal descriptors (e.g., “near the big temple”) rather than standardized addresses. Urban development, renamed streets, and expanded districts have rendered these old references obsolete. Migrants unable to trace their old listings face insurmountable barriers to updating their records, undermining electoral accessibility.
- Manual Registration Mistakes and Digital Conversion Errors: Initially handwritten and later digitized, the 2002–2005 rolls contain duplications, spelling errors, and inconsistencies. Discrepancies between physical and digital versions—stemming from flawed scanning or data entry—wrongly classify valid voters as unmatched, mandating unnecessary documentation and hearings that strain resources.
- Gender Bias in Voter Registration Practices: Historically, women were often registered as “wife of” or “daughter of,” rather than by their own names. Post-marriage name changes or relocations frequently erased these entries, complicating linkage for female voters. As a result, women face higher rates of “unmatched” rulings and additional scrutiny in 2025.
- Misinterpretation of Voter Registration as Citizenship Proof: Inclusion in 2002–2005 rolls merely indicates prior registration, not current citizenship. Equating missing names with disenfranchisement contravenes the spirit of Section 16 of the 1950 Representation of the People Act. Confusing voter rolls with citizenship databases risks unfairly penalizing eligible citizens.
- Regional Discrepancies in Registration Accuracy: Voter list quality in the 2000s varied widely by state, with some regions maintaining meticulous records while others faced systemic neglect. Uniform legacy linkage rules now unfairly impact high-mobility areas, such as urban centres, where mismatch rates are higher, subjecting more voters to unjust verification demands.
- Elevated Rates of Voter “Unmatched” Status: Early 2025 revisions reveal stark disparities, with Kerala matching only 68% of voters to 2002–2005 rolls. Automated systems flagging minor name, age, or address variations have allegedly wrongly labelled millions as unmatched, requiring costly, time-sensitive documentation to retain voting eligibility.
- Procedural Complexity and Exclusion Risks: Voters failing legacy matching must scramble to produce documents and attend hearings within tight deadlines. Despite partial extensions, under-resourced authorities risk automatic deletions of valid entries by late 2025, bypassing conclusive verification for many.
- Violation of Legal and Constitutional Frameworks: While the Election Commission can revise electoral rolls under Article 324 and Section 21 of the RP Act, 1950, mandatory linkage to 2000s-era rolls lacks statutory backing. This undermines the Commission’s post-2005 commitment to continuous updates and unfairly casts doubt on long-standing, lawfully enrolled voters.
- Uneven Impact on Marginalized Populations: Poor, elderly, illiterate, migrant, orphan, women, LGBTQ+, and newly naturalized citizens face disproportionate challenges navigating digitized portals, locating outdated documents, or attending hearings. Post-2005 citizens, absent from legacy rolls, are at heightened risk of exclusion and unjust scrutiny.
- Reversal of Modern Voter Update Protocols: From 2005 onward, the Commission employed annual adjustments to add new voters without revisiting outdated records. The 2025 revisions abruptly require alignment with 20+ year-old data, invalidating legally added entries and treating valid registrations as suspect—a regressive step in electoral governance.
- Inconsistencies Between Digital and Physical Records: Many voters find their names in printed 2002–2005 rolls absent on the ECI portal due to digitization errors, unsearchable PDFs, or scanning flaws. This digital-physical gap misclassifies genuine voters as unmatched, delaying verifications and risking wrongful removals. This reformulation ensures uniqueness while preserving the core critique of India’s voter registration system, emphasizing systemic inequities, procedural failures, and their disproportionate impacts on vulnerable groups.
- Administrative and Operational Challenges: Beyond systemic flaws in the voter rolls themselves, the implementation of SIR has revealed significant administrative and operational weaknesses. Limited staffing, inadequate training of Booth-Level Officers (BLOs), and uneven digital infrastructure across states have caused delays, errors, and inconsistent handling of voter submissions. These gaps disproportionately burden vulnerable populations, who often require extra guidance to navigate portals, produce documentation, and attend hearings, compounding the risk of wrongful exclusion.
- Risks of Technological Reliance and Automation: The heavy dependence on automated matching systems and online portals in SIR introduces additional risks. Algorithms often flag minor variations in names, ages, or addresses as mismatches, while technical glitches, server errors, or unsearchable PDFs prevent accurate verification. Voters without digital literacy, internet access, or proper documentation face disproportionate obstacles, increasing the likelihood of erroneous exclusions and undermining confidence in the electoral process.
- Legal Ambiguity and Statutory Limits: Mandatory legacy linkage lacks explicit backing under the Representation of the People Act, 1950. By treating non-linkage as grounds for scrutiny, SIR risks exceeding the Election Commission’s statutory authority, reopening settled entries, and creating legal uncertainty for voters lawfully added after 2005. This overreach raises questions about the exercise’s legitimacy and proportionality.
- Tight Timelines and Procedural Pressure: The short deadlines for submitting documents and attending hearings place undue stress on voters, especially marginalized populations. Even with partial extensions, insufficient staff and limited resources make timely verification difficult, increasing the chances of wrongful deletions and disenfranchisement before elections, undermining the principle of fair and inclusive participation.
- Grievance Redressal and Accessibility Gaps: SIR currently lacks robust, independent, and easily accessible appeal mechanisms. Voters encountering errors in linking to legacy lists often face bureaucratic hurdles, delayed responses, or no resolution. This absence of effective grievance redressal disproportionately affects rural, illiterate, and digitally excluded populations, threatening their ability to exercise voting rights fully.
- Political Neutrality and Perceived Bias: The timing and implementation of SIR, conducted close to elections, raises concerns about potential political influence. Uneven enforcement across regions, selective staff allocation, and opaque algorithmic criteria may inadvertently—or deliberately—disadvantage certain voter groups, undermining public trust in the neutrality and fairness of the electoral process.
- Data Integrity and Verification Shortcomings: Errors in digitization, data entry, and record synchronization between physical and online rolls compromise the accuracy of legacy linkage. Without independent verification or auditing mechanisms, genuine voters’ risk being incorrectly flagged as “unmatched,” while accountability for mistakes remains unclear, threatening the reliability of the electoral process.
Grounds for Challenging SIR in Court
- Constitutional Rights Erosion: The SIR system threatens widespread exclusion, violating Articles 14 (equality), 21 (due process), and 326 (adult suffrage) by undermining equitable treatment, procedural fairness, and democratic voting rights.
- Legal Mandate Deficit: The mandatory linking of voter identities to legacy records lacks explicit authorization under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, rendering the process legally unsound and overreaching.
- Citizenship Jurisdiction Misalignment: The Election Commission cannot interpret lack of identity linkage as proof of irregular citizenship, as electoral roll management and citizenship adjudication are governed separately under Section 16 of the RP Act.
- Procedural Justice Violations: Tight deadlines, burdensome documentation demands, poor system accessibility, and automated deletion protocols violate principles of fairness and natural justice.
- Systemic Bias and Marginalization: The framework disproportionately harms marginalized groups, including internal migrants, women, youth, transgender individuals, sex workers, orphans, low-income populations, and minorities.
- Erosion of Electoral Roll Finality: Re-examining names lawfully enrolled post-2005 disrupts the settled legal principle of finalized electoral roll revisions, creating unwarranted instability.
- Digital Infrastructure Flaws: Anomalies in outdated voter records, digitization errors, and inflexible automated matching algorithms lead to erroneous exclusion of legitimate voters.
- Suspect Scheduling and Intent: The exercise’s abrupt rollout near elections raises questions about political motives or targeted disenfranchisement.
- Data Oversight Gaps: No designated body oversees data accuracy in the linkage portal, allowing unchecked human errors during operator-managed entries.
- Legitimacy and Continuity Breach: Longstanding voters’ reasonable expectations of roster retention are unjustly disrupted without sufficient legal grounds.
- Unregulated Administrative Power: Field officials and automated systems operate without clear operational guidelines, fostering arbitrary decision-making.
- Informed Consent Shortfalls: Inadequate communication about procedural requirements, consequences, and redressal avenues impedes meaningful public engagement.
- Impeded Grievance Mechanisms: The absence of accessible, independent, and timely appeal avenues compounds the risk of uncorrected errors.
- Excessive Regulatory Measures: The goal of roll purification could be achieved through less restrictive methods, rendering compulsory legacy linkage an unreasonable invasion.
- Digital Access Inequities: Overreliance on web-based systems disadvantages voters lacking digital literacy, internet access, or formal documentation.
- Pre-Election Exclusion Risks: Cancellations pre-election cause irreversible denial of voting rights for an entire electoral cycle.
- Algorithm Opacity and Bias: Mysterious automated matching algorithms and flagging criteria breach transparency and accountability standards.
- Federal Implementation Disparities: Inconsistent state-level execution raises concerns about unequal enforcement and governance standards.
- Policy Discontinuity Crisis: Abrupt shifts from established revision practices without transitional safeguards undermine electoral system credibility.
- BLO Competency Gaps: Many Booth-Level Officers lack digital skills or training for portal-related tasks, heightening data input errors beyond voter verification.
Conclusion
The conclusion of the SIR enumeration process has accentuated the need to reevaluate the dependence on outdated voter rolls from 2002-2005 as a benchmark, as this approach threatens to disproportionately disenfranchise certain groups, notwithstanding efforts by the to address these concerns. Despite these mitigations, discrepancies in the records and gaps in digitization continue to pose significant challenges.
A more equitable approach would involve shifting away from the obligatory use of legacy voter links and instead prioritizing the use of contemporary identification documents, guaranteeing that all individuals have access to fair and impartial hearings, and implementing safeguards to protect the voting rights of vulnerable populations. By adopting such measures, the democratic process can better align with constitutional principles of universal suffrage and inclusivity, particularly in light of the ongoing supervision by the Supreme Court.
