Digital Pioneer Warns: Voter List Revision Puts Unfair Burden on Citizens

The government and the Election Commission of India (ECI) have been urged to carefully examine criticisms of the latest Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list, raised by Ram Sewak Sharma, a pioneer of India's digital governance and former director of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

In an article published in this newspaper, Sharma amplified concerns that have been voiced since the SIR began. The ECI has faced criticism for failing to balance the legitimate need to update the voter list—removing duplicate or deceased voters while enrolling newly eligible citizens—with the equally important obligation to avoid wrongful exclusion.

Reports indicate that the burden of proving eligibility has been placed primarily and unfairly on citizens. Individuals are being asked to furnish proof of birth, residence, and citizenship, even though, as Sharma points out, the state itself has rarely been diligent in maintaining such records.

India possesses a technologically sophisticated identity verification framework in Aadhaar. However, Sharma argues that by not accepting Aadhaar as credible address proof for the SIR, the state is failing to make meaningful use of a database—which also contains biometric details and proof of age—that it created. The philosophy behind India's Digital Public Infrastructure has been to ask less of citizens, not more. The SIR, he writes, seems to move in the opposite direction by “using a document-heavy method to solve a problem the country has already solved.”