Karnataka draft voter list released: 1.07 crore names deleted, check online
The Office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Karnataka, has published the draft electoral rolls for the State. The draft is now available for public viewing on the official CEO Karnataka website. Voters can check their names by selecting their district, assembly constituency, and polling station details.
The initial release was marked by technical glitches. The website crashed for several constituencies due to heavy traffic, and users reported error messages and PDF files that would not open. While Kannada versions of the rolls were accessible in some districts, all English-language files were reported to be corrupted. Some users could view booth-level details but could not download PDFs, while others who clicked the download option were redirected to HTML files instead of PDFs. The cause of the glitches was not immediately known.
A user on X said: "They don’t do proper test before releasing. In the morning, they had enabled the link but it took to the byepoll list without any SIR option in the drop down. Later they disabled again [and] opened up without any pdf opening at all."
According to the draft roll, more than 1.07 crore names have been deleted. In Bengaluru, the electorate has shrunk from 1.03 crore to 56.11 lakh. The deletions are classified under categories such as Absent, Shifted, Duplicate, Dead, and Others (ASDDO). Voters whose names have been deleted or who find themselves not included in the draft can file Form 6 to apply for inclusion during the claims and objections period, which runs from August 24 to September 22.
In addition to the deletion exercise, notices will be issued from August 24 to voters whose records have been flagged for logical discrepancies or who could not be mapped to the 2002 electoral rolls. Booth-level officers (BLOs) will deliver these notices, and hearings will be conducted by Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) or Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs).
Across Karnataka, 43.80 lakh notices will be served, of which 24.05 lakh are in Bengaluru alone. BLOs will conduct house-to-house visits to deliver the notices. Hearings may be held at any government premises, such as a police station, a government building near the polling station, or a gram panchayat office.
Voters receiving a notice must appear before the ERO in person, even if required documents are submitted online. A QR code on the notice will allow voters to scan and submit documents electronically. The notice will state the name of the officer, the venue and date of the hearing, and the reason for the notice.
A BLO is required to make only two attempts to serve the notice. If a voter does not attend the hearing, the ERO or AERO may reschedule it only once. The notice can be received on behalf of the voter by a family member, or by a neighbour if no family member is present. However, only the voter can appear for the hearing.
The draft roll publication is part of the annual electoral roll revision process. The claims and objections window provides an opportunity for eligible voters to rectify omissions or errors before the final publication.
