Update the rolls

Technology can help remove many errors in lists of voters

A survey conducted to find out the level of errors in the Delhi electoral roll has come up with startling findings. The survey, conducted by a non-governmental organisation based in Bengaluru named Janaagraha, claims that 22 per cent of the names need to be deleted as voters listed could not be found at their addresses. Even as Delhi goes to the polls in a few days in a keenly contested battle for the state Assembly, the sanctity of the whole electoral process may have been dented a bit by the finding. The role of the Election Commission of India in supervising elections that have become freer and fairer over 60 years is widely acknowledged. Indeed the commission has itself done much of the thankless work of cleaning up the electoral rolls of late, which is one of the reasons why voter turnout seems to have increased. But there are still flaws that need to be addressed.

A key reason why errors in electoral rolls have not attracted as much attention as, say, excessive spending by candidates or their criminal backgrounds is that this scale of error is a somewhat recent phenomenon. In the post-liberalisation era, rapid economic growth has been accompanied by massive urbanisation and migration. However, the electoral system, designed to serve a largely rural country where people do not migrate very readily, has remained unchanged. A faulty list of voters creates opportunities for abuse, particularly when outcomes can be determined by low margins. Hence, there is a need for quick remedial measures. If a person's move into a new urban area is not correctly captured in the lists, two errors occur. A name remains where it should not be, and is absent where it should be. This leads to not just a denial of the right to vote, but the presence of many names of non-existent voters in a list creates the opportunity for false voting. Instead of violent physical booth capturing of the past, there is now the increased possibility of vote capturing through impersonation. This can lead to a spike in votes polled in the closing hours of polling. Naturally, the party that is more organised and knows which voters will not turn up at a polling booth can be adept at ensuring such votes are nevertheless cast.

Lists need to be updated continuously and made accessible concurrently. But how to update voting lists in urban areas? The government's attempt to rope in private school teachers to assist in this exercise has been resisted. It is also important to smoothen the process. Online registration with the help of scanned documents, for example, is valuable - it would make it unnecessary for a voter to appear personally for the job. Most important, the Election Commission needs to be given its own machinery, and also to take the help of voluntary organisations for this updating job. It cannot rely exclusively on local government staff, who have their regular duties. What can be done has been demonstrated in a three-year exercise in a Bengaluru constituency through which 90,000 changes were recorded in the list of voters - partly as a consequence, in the 2013 Assembly elections polling went up to 58 per cent from the previous 44 per cent.