Stories
EC Responds to Commissioners' Concerns on Voter Forms, Database Access, and IT Systems
- •The Election Commission of India addressed issues raised by Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi over the past 10 months.
- •Joshi and Sandhu flagged concerns regarding changes to Form 6 for voter enrollment, access to the electoral roll database, and the functioning of the EC's IT systems.
- •The EC stated that the additional declaration in Form 6 was upheld by the Supreme Court and is specific to the SIR exercise, with regular forms used otherwise.
- •The commission will review ECINET with an independent expert to ensure compliance and address field officers' access needs, with new IT modules requiring committee approval.
- •The EC is addressing the issue of 97 voters in Goa by directing BLOs to collect forms for inclusion and has clarified that work-redistribution orders for the IT division were never implemented.
Key Questions Answered
Joshi and Sandhu objected that modifications to Form 6 for enrolling new voters—specifically an added online SIR declaration—required amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, making the change unauthorised. The Election Commission responded that the Supreme Court upheld the declaration specifically for the SIR exercise, while regular forms apply outside of it.
The Election Commission stated that field officers possess role-based access to ECINET aligned with statutory powers. A committee led by a senior deputy election commissioner and featuring an IIT or IIIT expert will review ECINET to ensure compliance with election laws.
The poll panel directed booth level officers (BLOs) to visit the left-out voters to collect their documents. Out of the 97 voters, 81 have already filled out Form 6 for inclusion, and the EC decided that BLOs will directly collect and upload forms during the ongoing SIR.
