Karnataka’s draft voter list has expanded by nearly eight lakh names before the final electoral roll is prepared, while election officials have not yet clarified who the newly added voters are or how all the additions were processed.
The state had 4.46 crore voters in the draft roll published in August. According to a notification issued by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer on October 16, the total number has since risen to 4.54 crore. The increase has emerged during the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral roll.
An electoral registration officer in Bengaluru told Prajavani that more than 10 lakh applications had been submitted across Karnataka for new voter registration. The officer said the applications may have been automatically added to the draft roll after disposal, but officials would know whether the names belonged to fresh applicants or others only after the final electoral roll was published.
The revision process has also flagged discrepancies involving existing voters. Notices were issued to 43.83 lakh voters over differences in details and mapping information. Of these, about 1.34 lakh people had not responded to the notices, according to the report. Some notices were received directly by voters, while political party agents also received notices in certain cases.
Booth-level officers attempted to contact voters using mobile numbers recorded in enumeration forms. Several people did not answer their calls, while some numbers were no longer active. Officials reportedly found during house visits that many of those who had not responded to notices were not living at the recorded addresses.
After conducting mahazars and uploading the notices to the ECI Net portal, the Election Commission’s system automatically generated Form 7 applications, which are used for objections to names in the electoral roll. These objections were added to the list of claims and objections, with the concerned electoral registration officer shown as the applicant. However, Prajavani’s review found that reasons had not been entered in the forms.
An assistant electoral registration officer in Bengaluru South expressed suspicion that political party agents may have submitted enumeration forms to facilitate the inclusion of ineligible voters. The official also said that where voters could not be found after notices were generated over discrepancies, questions could arise about whether the process had been used to add ineligible names. The report presents this as an official suspicion, not an established finding.
The deadline for filing and disposing of claims and objections under the revision process is October 22. By the previous Friday, 10.07 lakh applications had been submitted for new registration, 1.22 lakh requests had sought deletion of names and 12.79 lakh applications had requested corrections to voter details. The Chief Electoral Officer’s office said most applications had been examined and disposed of, but not all requests for new registration had been accepted. Applications were dropped when applicants could not be found during field verification. The final electoral roll is expected to clarify the status of the newly added names and unresolved objections.
