A default system

The controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has moved beyond the question of how many names have been removed from electoral rolls. It now raises a more fundamental question about who is actually exercising decision-making authority in the voter-list revision process, the EC itself or the software through which the process is being implemented. More than 13 crore names have reportedly been excluded during the nationwide exercise, making the issue too consequential to be dismissed as an ordinary database-cleaning exercise. The ECI has maintained that the purpose of SIR is to ensure that no eligible voter is excluded while ineligible or duplicate entries are removed. Its own instructions provide for house-to-house verification by Booth Level Officers and mechanisms for claims and objections. But the controversy over the software used in the process has introduced an entirely different dimension. The reported dispute over the additional declaration incorporated into Form 6 is particularly revealing. The ECI has now removed the additional SIR declaration from Form 6 in states and Union territories where the revision has been completed, following objections from two Election Commissioners over the legal basis for introducing the additional requirement. The Commission has also ordered a review of the ECINET system’s compliance. That development should not be brushed aside as a technical disagreement. If software determines whether an application proceeds, whether an elector is matched with an earlier electoral roll, or whether a person’s details are flagged for further verification, then the programming rules become part of the electoral process itself. Software cannot be permitted to become an invisible election authority. It can assist an election official, but it cannot replace the statutory authority of an election official. Reports of internal concerns over the functioning of the voter-roll software have already prompted the Commission to order a technical review. Reuters reported that the CEC had been questioned repeatedly by his fellow commissioners over aspects of the voter-list update process. There have also been reports from Goa of eligible voters being left out because of software-related problems, including the absence of a rollback facility. The issue is whether such enormous administrative power is being exercised with sufficient institutional checks, transparency and accountability. If more than 13 crore names have disappeared from electoral rolls, every deletion cannot simply be treated as a statistical outcome. The distinction between a voter being flagged, excluded from a draft roll and finally deleted after due process must therefore be made absolutely clear. The figure of 13 crore should not itself be presented as 13 crore permanently disenfranchised voters without distinguishing the stages of the revision process. But the sheer scale of exclusions demands extraordinary transparency. The Commission should publish the precise logic used by the software, the categories under which names were excluded, the number subsequently restored, the number awaiting verification and the number finally deleted after claims and objections. Independent technical and legal experts should be allowed to audit the system. The central question is simple: does the software serve the EC or has it allowed the software to determine outcomes that should remain the responsibility of human officials? In a democracy, that distinction is not technical. It is constitutional as the voter list is the foundation of the electoral process. If the system that creates that list is opaque, then public confidence will inevitably suffer. The answer is not to abandon SIR, but to ensure that no algorithm, database or software rule acquires an authority that belongs only to the law and accountable election officials.