Duplicate voter IDs: UP election chief orders purge to ensure robust voter rolls

Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa has ordered election authorities across all 75 districts to clean up the state's electoral rolls by eliminating duplicate voter entries ahead of the next assembly elections.

Presiding over a virtual review meeting with district election officers and electoral registration officers, Rinwa warned that administrative laxity during the verification drive will attract strict action. Field machinery has been instructed to track down and strike off redundant entries promptly, ensuring that voters retain only a single valid identity on the roll.

The directive follows an acknowledgement by the election authorities that multiple Electors Photo Identity Cards (EPICs) can be generated when an individual files repeated enrolment applications. While periodic deduplication runs across the Election Commission of India’s digital backbone, the poll body is working to detect duplicate submissions at the initial point of entry.

"We are on the path to achieving the objective of catching multiple forms submitted by an individual at the submission stage only," the CEO's office stated, indicating that upgraded software protocols will prevent duplicate voter records from entering the database in the first place.

Verification through booth officers

To scrub the registers thoroughly, booth-level officers (BLOs) have been instructed to identify any person who filed several forms during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Whenever duplicate entries are identified, officers must process them under established rules by submitting Form 7, the statutory application used to seek deletions from the electoral register.

Supervisors, along with electoral registration officers and assistant electoral registration officers, have been tasked with monitoring the deletions systematically. Rinwa stressed that swift disposal of these entries is essential before the Election Commission publishes the draft electoral roll on 12 November.

Enrolment drive across 75 districts

Alongside the drive to clean the rolls, Uttar Pradesh has rolled out special voter registration camps across all 75 districts. Camps organised on 17 October and 24 October aim to register eligible individuals whose names are still missing, with a focused push to enrol first-time voters turning 18.

Rinwa directed administrative teams to coordinate with local government departments, village heads, municipal councillors, voluntary groups and booth-level agents to maximise turnout during the special camps. Field staff are also receiving procedural training on updates within ERO-Net, standardising application handling across urban and rural voting booths.