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Context

The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill that seeks to link the electoral rolls with the Aadhaar database has been passed by both the Houses of the parliament.

Three electoral reforms

• A wide range of electoral reform proposals has been pending with the government, several of them for over two decades.
• The three reforms — common electoral rolls for Vidhan Sabha and panchayat elections, extending the qualifying date for registration of young new voters, and linking of Aadhaar with electoral rolls — taken up by the Union Cabinet on December 15 are, therefore, significant.

[1] Common electoral rolls

• For years, the ECI has been advocating a common electoral roll for all elections.
• Currently, separate electoral rolls are maintained for elections to the Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabha and local government bodies (panchayats or municipal).
• Role of ECI and SECs: There are two types of election management bodies in the country — the ECI that conducts the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections and SECs that conduct panchayat and municipal elections.
• The process for making electoral rolls is laid down in the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
• The SECs have the option of either adopting the electoral rolls created by the ECI or preparing such rolls on their own.
• Most prefer to use the rolls prepared by the ECI.
• Some states, however, develop their rolls independently.
• These are Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Odisha, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
• Considering that a voter for all three tiers of elected bodies is the same, why is it that she finds her name missing from one of the rolls, mostly the panchayat rolls?
• This is particularly surprising when the officials responsible for making both these rolls are the same.
• A common electoral roll is thus a logical solution. 

Benefits of common electoral rolls

• Tackling stuffing voters: A common experience has been the stuffing of bogus voters in the panchayat/municipal rolls.
• Corrupt practices are proportionately higher in PRI polls.
• Avoid the involvement of teachers in the non-teaching work: The process of making electoral rolls is usually done by the schoolteachers.
• Their involvement in non-teaching work takes its toll.
• Cost-saving: A common electoral roll will obviate the need for deploying them repeatedly, besides saving enormous costs.

Suggestions for preparation of common electoral rolls

• Issue joint instructions: The ECI and SECs can issue joint instructions for preparing the common rolls. The roll-making machinery stays the same.
• Pilot studies may be conducted in random constituencies to identify the discrepancies between two sets of rolls and their reasons.

What are the constitutional and legal changes required?

• Amendment in Article 243K and 243ZA: The SECs derive their powers to supervise local body elections from Articles 243K and 243ZA of the Constitution.
• Changes in State laws: All state governments would have to change their electoral laws to adopt ECI electoral rolls for local elections.

[2] Eligibility date of new voters

• According to Section 14(b) of the Representation of People Act of 1950, only those who have turned 18 on or before January 1 of the year are to be registered.
• This implies that all those who turn 18 between January 2 and December 31 of a year must wait till the next year.
• This technicality results in the exclusion of a large section of 18-year-olds.

Suggestion by ECI on eligibility date

• The ECI had sent a letter to the Law Ministry on November 4, 2013, which recommended the issuing of a voter card to an individual ideally on their 18th birthday, or updating voter rolls every month or quarter.
• A committee of the Ministry of Law and Justice under Sushil Kumar Modi has proposed quarterly cut-off dates for voter registration — January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1.

[3] Aadhar linking

• The proposal to link electoral rolls with Aadhaar was first mooted by the ECI in 2015 but work on it had to be stopped when the Supreme Court ruled that Aadhaar cannot be used except voluntarily for beneficiary-oriented schemes.
• Benefits of linking: The linking will help in identifying duplicate voters, something that ECI has been desperately attempting for years using various “de-duplication” software with limited success.

Consider the question “What are the concerns with linking of Aadhar and electoral rolls? Suggest the way forward.”

Conclusion

Any progress in addressing the vexed issue of electoral reform — even in a piecemeal manner — is welcome. The time has, however, come for the government to consider the 40-plus pending proposals, instead of selectively going for some reforms.

Context

The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 was passed in the Lok Sabha recently. It seeks to link electoral rolls with the Aadhaar ecosystem.

What are the concerns with linking of Aadhar with electoral roll?

[1] Aadhar is not proof of citizenship

• Aadhaar is not meant to be a citizenship proof but only a digital identity for all residents.
• Residence of 182 days can make even a non-citizen eligible for an Aadhaar ID.

[2] Aadhar is not address proof

• According to public statements by several government functionaries, Aadhaar was only meant to be identity proof but not address proof.
• Electoral roll is based on Aadhar: In contrast, the RER clearly stipulates address to be a key index for electoral rolls.
• Different enrollment process: Moreover, the enrolment processes for voters’ lists and Aadhaar are completely different.
• Whereas Aadhaar enrolment is based on production of existing documents and the “introducer system”, voter enrolments involve physical verification and “house visits” by a registration officer or representative.

[3] No audit report on the efficacy of Aadhaar deduplication or on the authenticity of the Aadhaar database

• Even the Supreme Court accepted the Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) claims on the integrity of the Aadhaar database at face value without any scrutiny.
• Risk of exclusion error: Using Aadhaar to clean the electoral rolls involved the risk of disenfranchisement, especially of the marginalised communities.
• It is to be noted that there is ample publicly documented evidence of large-scale exclusion in PDS and welfare disbursal due to Aadhaar.

[4] Conflict of interest

• UIDAI is under government control: Maintenance of the voters’ lists is a primary responsibility of the ECI, which is an independent constitutional body, whereas Aadhaar is a government instrument and UIDAI is under government control.
• Since the ECI has no control on either enrolment or deduplication in Aadhaar, it appears inappropriate — and a potential conflict of interest — to use Aadhaar for electoral rolls.
• In particular, since Aadhaar is directly used for disbursal of welfare and direct benefit transfers, linking it with voter ID may provide a direct method for the government to influence and manipulate voters.

[5] Risk of profiling and targeting of voters

• Aadhaar is a ubiquitous ID that is used in a variety of applications.
• Linking it with the voter ID will open up avenues for profiling and targeting of voters.
• No audit for purpose limitation: This is of particular concern because neither the UIDAI nor the ECI have publicly audited architectures for purpose limitation and protection against insider attacks.
• While profiling using public data is not illegal according to current laws, both the electorate and Parliament need to clearly understand the risks of such profiling.
• It is far easier to win elections through digital analysis of electoral rolls than through attacking the electronic voting process, especially when election results are available at booth-level granularity
• Both privacy and integrity of the electoral rolls are of paramount importance in the digital age, and the clear tension between the two makes the problem challenging.

Way forward

• Use of cryptography: The RER of 1960 clearly opted for transparency as a means to the integrity of the electoral rolls, thereby ensuring that all additions and deletions can be publicly audited.
• However, with the possibility of digital processing of electoral data, the risks associated with such complete transparency have increased manifold.
• Yet, there are several modern techniques from cryptography and computer science that may help mitigate the risks by enabling both privacy and public auditability.

Consider the question “The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 enable the linking of electoral rolls with the Aadhaar ecosystem. What are the objectives of such linking and concerns raised against it?”

Conclusion

An electoral reforms bill at the onset of 2022 needed to explore and address these issues head-on.

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