Widespread discrepancies found in electoral roll revision in Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram: Major discrepancies have surfaced in the Election Commission’s database during the ongoing intensive revision of the state’s electoral roll, with multiple instances of voters being listed under the house number ‘zero’. What initially appeared to be isolated errors has now emerged as a widespread issue, with several Booth Level Officers (BLOs) reporting numerous such cases.

In some polling booths, between 10 and 30 voters share the house number ‘zero’, while others have no house name recorded at all. Instead, only the number zero appears in their address. Nearly 80 per cent of the enumeration forms handed to BLOs contain incomplete addresses.

The inconsistencies go further. In several households, two voters have been assigned the house number ‘zero’, while a third resident in the same home has a correct house number recorded. This raises serious concerns about how such errors occurred, particularly when voter ID cards issued by the Commission contain accurate addresses. The issue points to a possible flaw in the software used to generate the new 2025 draft electoral rolls.

The voters who cannot be traced by BLOs would be removed after the SIR. Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had previously informed Lok Sabha Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi that entries with the house number ‘zero’ typically represent homeless individuals or cases where local bodies have not assigned house numbers. However, the latest findings indicate that many affected voters do not fall into either category, suggesting the problem is more systemic than initially acknowledged.