Tamil Nadu: DMK Demands Review of Voter Deletion Practices

In a representation seeking review and rectification of electoral roll anomalies and unjust deletion of voters’ name, he said the practice of deleting voters’ name by the Election Commission of India (ECI) without providing notice was not only arbitrary and violated the principles of natural justice but could also undermine the integrity of free and fair elections if left unchecked.

Though the DMK’s Booth Level Agents (BLAs) had been tasked with coordinating with the ECI for updating electoral rolls, thousands of names had been deleted from the voters list by the ECI, despite electors holding valid Voter IDs and residing at the same address for several years and voted in the past elections.

He said Section 9 of the Registration of Electoral Rules, 1960, mandated Registration Officers to verify the Registers of Death when objections were raised under “Form 7” and Section 21A mandated them to prepare a list of deceased persons/electors and display or publish it on the website, the ECI had failed to go through the process that should be completed before the final Electoral List was published.

When BLAs of the DMK, appointed to assist BLOs in the deletion and correction of electoral rolls, conducted inspections and identified deceased voters, BLOs were insisting on the production of death certificates for deleting the names from the electoral roll when Electoral Roll Officers, mostly working in the revenue department, had access to the Birth and Death Register.

It was the bounden duty of the Registration Officer to access and verify the registers based on the objections to the roll and it was for them to collect the respective death certificates from the authorities for verification on receipt of ‘Form 7’ from BLAs, he said.

Besides not deleting names of deceased voters, the ECI was not providing notice to eligible voters whose names it wanted to delete from the electoral roll, he said.