Thousands of residents in Chennai spent their weekend standing in queues at special voter enrolment camps, compelled to take the manual route due to a series of technical roadblocks in the online electoral registration process. This surge in footfall comes in the wake of a massive deletion of nearly 14 lakh names from the draft electoral rolls following the Summary Revision (SIR), prompting the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) to organize these camps to facilitate re-enrolment and new applications.
Technical Glitches Force Manual Applications
The primary reasons driving citizens to polling booths included name mismatches in official records, changes of residence, and missing parental details from the 2005 SIR data. These issues repeatedly caused online applications to be rejected, leaving manual submission through Form 6 as the only viable option. At the camps, booth-level officers (BLOs) were seen assisting people in filling out these forms by hand to get their names added to the voters' list.
Sadiq Basheer, a resident of Otteri, shared his experience, stating that despite never shifting residence and having all documents in order, his name was absent from the draft roll. "When I tried to apply online, the application was rejected due to a spelling variation between my Aadhaar card and the online form. At the camp, the BLOs suggested that I apply for a new voter registration," he explained.
New and Deleted Voters Face Hurdles
The camps became a crucial avenue for new voters like 18-year-old R Rishidharan from Purasawalkam, who found the online portal incomplete. "Though my parents' voter details from the last SIR in 2005 were available, the part number and polling station details were not available on the portal, so I was unable to apply online. It was easier to fill the form at the camp," he said.
For those who had changed residences, the process was equally frustrating. S Maheswari, who recently moved to Pallavaram, visited a camp in her previous area of Virugambakkam to inquire about her name's deletion. "The BLOs asked me to apply for a new voter ID at my current address, but I do not have address proof. I have been visiting camps in both areas, but there has been no proper response," she lamented. Many in similar situations were advised by BLOs to apply afresh at their new addresses.
GCC's Drive and a Warning on Duplicate IDs
In response to the large-scale deletions, the GCC organized a significant outreach effort, setting up over 4,000 special enrolment camps at polling stations across the city on a single Saturday. A senior GCC official addressed a common issue emerging from the process, noting, "Some residents apply for a new voter ID despite already being enrolled at their previous address. During verification, if duplicate voter IDs are found, one will be deleted in the next draft electoral roll."
The weekend camps highlighted the persistent gaps in the digitized electoral registration system, underscoring the reliance on ground-level intervention to ensure citizens' right to vote is not compromised by technicalities. The GCC continues its drive to ensure all eligible voters in Chennai are correctly enrolled ahead of the upcoming revisions.
