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Will address duplicate voter ID numbers soon: ECI
The ECI plans to replace duplicate EPIC numbers with unique identifiers in three months, amid accusations of voter list manipulation and political controversy.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday announced plans to replace all duplicate Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC) numbers with unique identifiers within the next three months, but reiterated that the duplication of the numbers did not mean there were fake voters.
The announcement comes amid a growing political row, most recently in Bengal where the Trinamool Congress on February 27accused the poll body of manipulating records in a way that amounted to fraud and gave an advantage to its rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The commission said it had carried out a “sample enquiry” of over 100 electors and found that those with duplicate EPIC numbers were genuine electors. “The Commission has now decided to resolve this long pending issue after detailed discussions within the technical teams and concerned CEOs in the next three months by ensuring a unique national EPIC number to the existing electors having a duplicate EPIC number and for future electors as well,” the poll body said in a statement.
People familiar with the matter said that out of more than 992 million registered voters, approximately 500,000 have been flagged for EPIC discrepancies — representing about 0.0005% of the total electorate.
In a letter dated August 7, 2024, the ECI identified five types of “EPIC discrepancies”: multiple EPIC numbers issued to the same elector, multiple electors with the same EPIC number, states using identical alpha-numeric systems, EPICs containing more than 10 digits, and electors who haven’t been issued EPICs.
The EC did not respond to HT’s requests for estimates on how many EPIC discrepancies or duplicate EPIC numbers may exist.
“This is a legacy issue for the Commission and it has always been aware of it and sent multiple communications to the states to remove the discrepancies from time to time,” said a person with knowledge of the situation. “However, this could not happen as the removal is a very sensitive issue, which also needed ground truthing.”
“Irrespective of an EPIC number, an elector who is linked to the electoral roll of a particular polling station can cast his vote at that polling station only and nowhere else,” the commission said on Friday, reiterating its stand.
The commission explained that the duplication issue dates back to 2000 when EPIC series were first introduced. The problem occurred because some electoral registration officers at the assembly constituency level did not use the correct series.
After Friday’s announcement, the TMC posted on social media platform X: “.@ECISVEEP has been forced to admit the allegations raised by Smt. @MamataOfficial. Acknowledging their fault, they have now promised to fix the voter list manipulation issue within three months. But why did they stay silent all this time? Will the ECI finally uphold democracy or continue to serve as @BJP4India’s puppet?”
Earlier, the ECI had attributed the duplication to “decentralised and manual mechanism” with “identical alphanumeric series” being used by different states before electoral roll databases were migrated to the “ERONET platform.”
The person quoted above added that the ECI is now addressing the matter on “mission mode” and has ordered all states to conduct physical verification before removing duplicate EPIC numbers.
In its August 7 communication to chief electoral officers of all states and Union Territories (except Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Haryana, and Jammu and Kashmir), the ECI outlined procedures for handling discrepancies during the Special Summary Revision of electoral rolls.
For cases of multiple EPIC numbers issued to the same voter, the commission directed that the current EPIC should be retained while removing multiple entries. In instances where multiple voters share the same EPIC number, the number issued to the first elector would be maintained while others would receive fresh EPICs with new numbers. The letter instructed that old cards should be “collected and destroyed by cutting the same into pieces after keeping a proper record.”
Despite these instructions, sources indicated the procedure wasn’t consistently followed at various state levels.
The newly-constituted EAGLE cell which oversees electoral and legal issues in the Congress termed ECI’s response as “duplicitous”.
“The Congress party rejects this feeble and duplicitous explanation by the ECI and reiterates its demand to come clean on the sanctity of the voter list in India,” it said in a statement. “There was a categorical demand made by the Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, along with other concerned political parties, for the Election Commission to provide a copy of the Maharashtra voter rolls. Why has there been a deafening silence on this? this only reaffirms that what the Congress party has been asserting –– voter lists under the current ECI are dubious and flawed.”
