New Delhi: In a significant move to enhance the integrity and accuracy of electoral rolls, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has unveiled three major initiatives.
These reforms seek to streamline voter data management and enhance the efficiency of electoral processes. The ECI will now take data of death registrations from the Registrar General of India (RGI) to update electoral rolls.
The poll panel has also modified the voter information slip to ensure the serial and part number of voters are prominently visible on it.
In a press release issued on Thursday, the ECI said that booth-level officers (BLOs) will carry special identity cards as they are the first interface with voters.
Linking electoral rolls with birth and death registrations will ensure accuracy and help in updating data efficiently, the ECI said.
These measures are in line with the initiatives as envisaged by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar during the Conference of Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) along with Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi in March.
Data from the RGI will ensure that electoral registration officers (EROs) receive timely information about registered deaths. This will also enable BLOs to re-verify information through field visits, without waiting for a formal request under Form 7.
On the voter information slip, the more visible serial and part numbers will make it easy for voters to identify their polling station and for polling officials to locate their names in the electoral roll.
The BLOs carrying standard photo identity cards will ensure people can recognise and interact confidently with them during voter verification and registration drives.
