Election Commission says it will resolve duplicate voter ID number problem within three months

The Election Commission on Friday said that it would solve the problem of duplicate voter identity numbers having been issued in different states within three months by ensuring a unique national EPIC number to all voters.

EPIC, or the Electors Photo Identification Card, is issued by the Election Commission and serves as identification proof for Indian citizens over the age of 18 to cast their vote in elections. The EPIC number is the voter ID card number.

The poll panel said that its sample enquiry of more than 100 electors had revealed that electors with duplicate EPIC numbers were “genuine electors”.

“Since the allotment of EPIC series in the year 2000 to the States/UTs, some EROs [Electoral Registration Officers] did not use the correct series,” it said in a statement. “The issue of allotment of duplicate numbers due to incorrect series across States/UTs could not have been detected as the States/UTs were independently managing the electoral roll databases.”

It also claimed that irrespective of the duplication, voters cannot cast their ballots in constituencies other than their own.

On February 27, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of colluding with the Election Commission to add fake voters to electoral lists in order to win the recent Assembly elections in Delhi and Maharashtra.

She accused...

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