Election Department Tightens Voter Roll Rules Across UP
Lucknow, Oct 25: Uttar Pradesh's Election Department has moved to fix responsibility for repeated mistakes in voter list revision. Officials found negligent will face action, and computer assistants have been stopped from feeding voter list forms.
The department has told Divisional Commissioners, who are serving as roll observers, to supervise voter list preparation closely in their divisions. In case of irregularities, the District Election Officer concerned will also be held accountable.
A statement from the Chief Electoral Officer's office said a virtual meeting was held on October 24 with senior election officials and computer assistants. The discussion focused on preparations for the Special Summary Revision of voter lists in assembly constituencies.
During the meeting, officials received detailed guidance on complaints, form feeding, duplicate entries and accountability. They were directed to mandatorily check all Form-6, Form-7 and Form-8 entries fed by computer assistants since the Special Intensive Revision closing date of April 10, 2026. The purpose is to ensure that incidents such as the one in Pilibhit do not recur.
If any irregularity surfaces, the Electoral Registration Officer, Assistant Electoral Registration Officer and the concerned computer assistant will be held responsible. Action will be taken under Section 32 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.
District Election Officers will also face fixing of responsibility if supervision is found lax. Officials were told that physically received application forms must not be fed by computer assistants. Such forms must be digitised by Booth Level Officers through the BLO app. Officials have also been asked to safeguard physical forms and dispose of pending cases as per rules.
The office asked officials to thoroughly study Section 32 of the 1950 Act. It also clarified that errors identified during probes of complaints about voter list irregularities, raised by political parties and on social media, must not be repeated.
Officials were reminded not to share their ERONET login IDs and passwords with any other person. The meeting also emphasised the disposal of pending applications. EROs have been directed to review all pending Form-6, Form-7 and Form-8 cases daily and ensure timely, lawful disposal.
Complaints received from April 10 onwards through NGSP, PGRS, social media and other channels must also be resolved promptly and effectively.
Officials were also warned about online voter services. Call requests made via the 'Book a Call with BLO' option on the ECINET app and Voter Service Portal must not stay pending beyond 48 hours. Strict action will follow if BLOs record voters as unavailable without contacting them or do not respond on time.
The department expressed dissatisfaction with District Election Officers of Bulandshahr, Sitapur, Ghaziabad and Aligarh for not sending timely reports on duplicate voter entries shared on social media. They were asked to submit their replies at the earliest.
Complaints about BLOs being late to or absent from booths during Special Campaign Days were also reviewed. Reports have been sought on the absent BLOs, and officials were warned that such lapses will not be accepted during future Special Campaign Days.
Training was imparted on information available through the ECINET dashboard and various procedures. To avoid work disruption during BSNL network failures, officials were asked to update their personal mobile numbers in place of CUG numbers on the portal and change passwords immediately under the password policy.
Finally, the Election Department has directed all officials to take timely steps to ensure that no duplicate entries remain in the draft voter list to be published during the upcoming SSR.