A fortnight ago '10 lakh plus' Kerala voters were 'missing', now nearly 25 lakh seek inclusion

Thiruvananthapuram: When the draft voter list for the coming local body polls was published by Kerala State Election Commission on July 23, it caused a flutter. 
The draft list had 10,42,562 less voters than the revised voters list published by the Election Commission of India on January 6, 2025; if the ECI list had 2,77,20,818  voters, the SEC's draft list that came just five months later had only 2,66,78,256 voters.

If any voter had found their names unjustifiably removed from the draft list, the SEC had set August 8 (Thursday) as the last date for submitting the application for inclusion. 

By that date, 22,47,495 applications for inclusion in the electoral roll, more than double the number that was missing in the draft, were received by the SEC.

The rush to get the names in the electoral roll has been so heavy that the SEC has now extended the deadline to August 12. The SEC sources now say that the applications seeking inclusion could cross 25 lakh. The final list will be published on August 30 after processing these applications.

Overenthusiasm of political parties could be the reason for this surfeit of Form 4 applications; it is on the SEC's Form 4 that a potential voter in Kerala should apply for inclusion in the roll. "It is highly likely that all three major fronts would have submitted the Form 4 application on behalf of one voter, causing rampant duplication", a senior SEC official said. 

The facility that encourages political parties to submit innumerable applications is the 'Citizen Registration' in the SEC website. Any person who registers can submit 10 applications. This allows political party members at the local level to maximise applications. 

Even if there is widespread duplication, it is said that not more than 5 lakh applications would be rejected when the final list is published. In short, the shortage found in the draft list will be more than made up in the final list.

It is not all inclusion. There are applications for deletions, too. After Form 4, the most number of applications received are Form 5 ones. Form 5 is the application used to object to the inclusion of a name. By August 8, the SEC has received 2,30,626 such applications wanting names in the draft list to be removed. After the Form 4 'inclusion' applications, this is the second-largest number of applications received. 

The local body secretary will take a call on these 'objection' applications after serving notice, hearing the parties and also doing a field-level enquiry. 

After the draft list was published on July 23, the electoral registration officers (local body secretaries) have also deleted 9045 names on their own, without a Form 5 complaint. These are voters who have died or shifted permanently. On top of it, 1379 applications have been received till date from individuals seeking the deletion of their own names from the list. 

There is a load of two other forms with the SEC: Form 6 and 7. Form 6 deals with corrections, and Form 7 is for transposition, which means a change from one ward to another or one polling booth to another. By now, 1,17,108 Form 7 applications (transpositions) and 9795 Form 6 applications (corrections) have been received.