Team Goemkarponn
PANAJI: In a significant step to clean up and modernize the country’s electoral rolls, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has successfully resolved a nearly two-decade-old issue involving the duplication of similar EPIC (Electors Photo Identity Card) numbers issued to genuine voters across different constituencies.
The ECI announced that it had traced the root of the problem to 2005, when Assembly Constituency-wise alphanumeric series were assigned in a decentralized manner. Some states and Union Territories continued to use outdated series even after the delimitation of constituencies in 2008, leading to cases where different electors in separate constituencies were inadvertently issued similar EPIC numbers.
In a nationwide exercise, the electoral database — comprising more than 99 crore electors — was meticulously examined by Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) across all 36 States and Union Territories, and Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) from 4,123 Assembly constituencies. The verification covered 10.5 lakh polling stations, each typically serving around 1,000 voters.
The ECI emphasized that the number of similar EPIC numbers found was extremely low, averaging just one case in every four polling stations. Field-level checks confirmed that these EPIC holders were genuine electors registered in different polling stations and constituencies.
“All such electors have now been issued new EPIC cards with unique numbers,” the ECI stated.
Importantly, the Commission clarified that having a similar EPIC number never allowed a person to vote in multiple polling stations. “Every voter’s name appears only in the electoral roll of the polling station where they are an ordinary resident. Hence, this issue had *no impact on election results*,” the ECI affirmed.
This clean-up is part of ECI’s ongoing mission to ensure transparency, accuracy, and credibility in India’s electoral processes ahead of upcoming elections.
