Voter Verification Challenges Emerge in Telangana's Pre-SIR Mapping Exercise
Early indications of friction have surfaced in Telangana's preparatory activities for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, as citizens attempting to verify their details on the Election Commission of India's official portal are encountering a mix of technical obstacles and historical data limitations.
Root Causes: Outdated Systems and Administrative Changes
The core of the problem lies in the portal's reliance on polling station identifiers from the year 2002, which voters must accurately recall to trace their last SIR records. This requirement has become particularly challenging due to multiple subsequent developments:
- The 2008 delimitation exercise that substantially reconfigured constituency boundaries across the region
- The bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and creation of Telangana as a separate state
- Significant population migration patterns over the past two decades
- Inconsistent transliteration of voter names from Telugu to English in official records
For numerous electors, identifying their precise constituency and booth details from more than twenty years ago has transformed into what many describe as an exercise in guesswork. While delimitation represented a one-time administrative adjustment, regular annual revisions of electoral rolls have continued to modify polling station names and numbers over time.
Migration Complications and Search Limitations
Population movement has introduced additional verification complexities. Voters have relocated from Andhra Pradesh and other states to Telangana, shifted between booths within the same constituency, moved across city constituencies, or migrated across state borders entirely—making backward tracing of electoral records increasingly difficult.
For those unable to proceed using polling station details, the portal provides a name-based search alternative. However, the available 2002 SIR rolls online feature transliterated versions from Telugu to English, resulting in frequent spelling mismatches. Minor variations—such as 'Sudhakar' versus 'Sudhakara'—can prevent matches from appearing entirely.
Interface Changes and Political Responses
The verification process has been further complicated by the removal of a previously accessible door/house number search option, which electors report made verification quicker and more intuitive. Without this feature, name searches often return hundreds of similar entries, transforming verification into what many characterize as a laborious and impractical task.
Political parties have appealed to the Election Commission to reinstate the door number search facility, contending that it would streamline verification, enhance voter confidence, and create a more inclusive digital process. They argue that the information revealed through door number searches remains accessible via name searches and presents no additional security concerns.
Technical Constraints and Administrative Measures
Another technical limitation identified is the 100-record cap on name-search results, despite only two mandatory fields being required: state name and the elector's full name as recorded in the 2002 roll. Parties have requested removal of this restriction to ensure all relevant records become visible during searches.
At the operational level, verification continues through ERO Net/ECI Net systems, with Booth Level Officers and Block Education Officers utilizing applications to search records, link rolls, and flag doubtful cases involving similar names or surname variations.
Addressing migration-related gaps, Chief Electoral Officer C Sudharshan Reddy acknowledged issues stemming from population movement, noting that new Booth Level Officers have received access to other states' SIR rolls to facilitate verification. He emphasized that citizens can conduct searches directly on ECI Net platforms.
