Karnataka chief electoral office admits multiple voter IDs generated for same person during SIR

The Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer on Saturday admitted that multiple Elector Photo Identity Card numbers were inadvertently generated for the same person during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls due to “procedural circumstances during data processing”.

The clarification came after The Hindu reported on Wednesday that at least 803 voter IDs were linked to just 397 persons in the Mahadevapura Assembly constituency.

The report also highlighted cases in which persons held multiple voter IDs and instances where the same ID number appeared in the final electoral rolls of two different Assembly constituencies.

On Saturday, the state poll panel chief said that some applicants had submitted multiple Form 6 applications, seeking inclusion in the electoral rolls, through the Citizen Service Portal during the voter roll revision process. As these applications were processed independently, multiple voter ID numbers were inadvertently generated for the same individual.

The officer also explained that some identical voter ID numbers appeared in the electoral rolls of two constituencies because of delays in processing applications for deletion following migration.

In some cases, Form 8 applications seeking migration to another constituency had been approved and the electors’ names were included in the rolls of their new constituencies. However, the corresponding Form 7 applications, seeking deletion of their names from the previous constituencies, remained pending.

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