Bihar: The special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Bihar is progressing steadily, with just 32 lakh voters yet to be covered. However, the latest update from the Election Commission on Saturday has highlighted a worrying detail, around 11,000 electors have been marked as “not traceable.”

As reported by Times of India, these “not traceable” voters may be illegal immigrants living outside Bihar but enrolled in the state’s voter list, potentially creating opportunities for bogus voting. Election officials explain that these electors were not only missing from their registered addresses during visits by booth-level officers (BLOs) but were also unknown to immediate neighbours. In some cases, the recorded addresses did not exist at all.

An Election Commission official suggested that these voters could be illegal immigrants, possibly from Bangladesh or the Rohingya community, residing in neighbouring states but having managed to obtain voter ID cards from Bihar. This could have happened due to weak verification during previous summary revisions or through corrupt practices, posing a significant threat to the integrity of elections.

Out of Bihar’s total electorate, nearly 41.6 lakh voters, around 5.3%, were not found at their registered addresses despite three mandatory BLO visits. This group includes approximately 14.3 lakh possibly deceased voters (1.8%), 19.7 lakh likely permanently relocated voters (2.5%), 7.5 lakh voters enrolled at multiple locations (0.9%), and the 11,000 “not traceable” electors.

The presence of potentially deceased voters on the rolls is particularly concerning, especially since their names were still listed as of June 24, 2025. Officials warn that failing to remove such names creates openings for fraudulent votes. Given that the number of missing electors exceeds typical victory margins in several constituencies, the intensive revision process is crucial to identify and rectify these irregularities.

Despite these challenges, nearly 96% of Bihar’s 7.9 crore electorate have submitted enrolment forms so far, with about 88.2% of the received forms digitised and processed.