SIR: 64.5 lakh voters potentially missing in Karnataka’s rolls

Why in the News

Karnataka’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was meant to leave the State with complete and clean rolls, yet its final rolls fall about 64.5 lakh short of the adults projected to be eligible. The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has released the final rolls with an Elector-to-Population (E-to-P) ratio of 66.11.

What does the Elector-to-Population ratio measure?

1. What it is: The E-to-P ratio is the number of registered voters for every 100 people. It works like comparing the names on a class register with the children actually in school.
2. How the CEO computes it: The CEO divides total electors by the State’s estimated population of all ages, including children who cannot vote.
3. Projection base: The estimate comes from the 2020 Report of the Technical Group on Population Projections, set up by the National Commission on Population.
4. Expected roll size: The report puts Karnataka’s current population at about 6.89 crore, of whom 5.19 crore are eligible to vote.
5. The takeaway: A ratio far below the adult share means eligible adults were left off, not just dead or duplicate names removed.

Who is missing from the rolls?

1. Final count: The final rolls list 4,54,55,689 electors, excluding service electors.
2. Young voters: Adults aged under 30 make up 59.5% of the missing electors.
3. First-time voters: Only 33.1%, about one in three, of those old enough to vote for the first time are enrolled.
4. Voters in their twenties: About 77.9% of this group is enrolled, and the gap keeps narrowing in older age groups.
5. Women voters: Young women are more under-enrolled than young men, but the pattern reverses among older voters. The rolls’ gender ratio rose from 1,007 to 1,017 women per thousand men.

Where did the deletions go wrong?

1. Few true removals: Of 1.08 crore names deleted during enumeration, only 21.8% were duplicates or deceased.
2. “Shifted or absent” marks: The remaining 78.2% were deleted as shifted or absent, meaning the voter was not found at the listed address.
3. Weak recovery: The Claims and Objections phase, when people can seek inclusion, added only 8.2 lakh names on net.
4. Bengaluru gaps: Thirteen constituencies, most in and around Bengaluru, have ratios below 50.
5. B.T.M. Layout: The constituency has the lowest ratio, 39.23, after its rolls shrank by more than half.

Is the gap real or a projection error?

1. Cleanup was needed: Before the SIR, Karnataka had 5.54 crore electors, more than its projected adult population, so removing duplicates and dead voters was necessary.
2. Projection limits: Projections made in 2020 cannot fully capture later migration, so some gap is expected.
3. Too big to be error: Economist Jean Dreze notes that adults form about 75% of Karnataka’s population. He says the gap is “too big to be explained by inaccuracies in population projections”.

Challenges

1. Subjective verification: Booth Level Officers (BLOs) decide during house visits whether a voter has moved, so a voter can be struck off arbitrarily.
2. Overburdened officers: BLOs work to tough targets and tight deadlines, which raises the risk of errors in mass deletions.
3. Documentation hurdles: Demands for legacy documents or birth certificates keep out people without formal records.

Way Forward

1. Re-verify mass deletions: The CEO should re-check address-based deletions in constituencies with very low ratios.
2. Campus enrolment: The CEO should run enrolment drives in colleges and workplaces to register young voters.
3. Death registry link: The Election Commission of India (ECI) should link the Civil Registration System (CRS) to the rolls, so dead voters drop out automatically.

Conclusion

Karnataka’s revision has removed redundant names but left young and urban adults off the rolls in numbers that projection error alone does not explain. How many deleted voters re-enrol before the next election will show whether the gap closes.

Key numbers

1. Missing young voters: about 38.41 lakh aged 18 to 29.
2. First-time voters: 6.83 lakh enrolled of an estimated 20.66 lakh.
3. Voters in their twenties: 86.56 lakh enrolled of an estimated 1.11 crore.
4. B.T.M. Layout rolls: Shrank from 2.82 lakh to 1.41 lakh electors.

Back2Basics: Special Intensive Revision

1. What it is: An SIR is a time-bound house-to-house enumeration in which BLOs verify every entry, unlike the routine annual summary revision.
2. Constitutional basis: Article 324 gives the ECI superintendence, direction and control over electoral rolls.
3. Statutory basis: Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 lets the ECI order a special revision with recorded reasons.
4. History: India has held about 14 intensive revisions, the first in the 1950s.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2026, GS2, 10 marks] Is the right to vote a fundamental right? Discuss the position of the Election Commission of India while undertaking the revision of electoral rolls. Can it also examine the question of citizenship of voters?”