Over 50% voters may not have to give documents in SIR: EC officials

More than half of the electorate in most of the states may not have to provide any document as they will be covered in the electoral roll of the last special intensive revision (SIR) held in their states, Election Commission officials said on Wednesday.

They pointed out that most states had the last special intensive revision of the voters’ list between 2002 and 2004. That year will be considered their cutoff date for the next SIR.

The Election Commission will soon decide on the date to roll out SIR across the country, and the exercise to clean up the voter list across states may take place before the end of the year, officials had earlier said.

Chief electoral officers have been told to keep the electoral rolls of their states, published after the previous SIR, ready. Some state CEOs have already put up the voter list published after their last SIR on their websites. The website of the Delhi CEO has the 2008 voter list when the last intensive revision took place in the national capital. In Uttarakhand, the last SIR took place in 2006, and that year’s electoral roll is now on the state CEO website.

The last SIR in states will serve as the cut-off date, just as the 2003 voter list of Bihar is being used by the EC for intensive revision. According to the instructions issued by the poll authority to its Bihar poll machinery, the 4.96 crore voters — 60 per cent of the total electors — who were listed in the 2003 special intensive revision need not submit any supporting document to establish their date or place of birth, except the relevant portion of the electoral roll brought out after the revision.

The other three crore — nearly 40 per cent — will have to provide one of the 12 listed documents to establish their place or date of birth. An additional ‘declaration form’ has been introduced for a category of applicants seeking to become electors or shifting from outside the state.