Karnataka Publishes Draft Electoral Rolls Following Massive Deletions

The office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Karnataka has published the draft electoral rolls as part of a special intensive revision. More than 1.07 crore names were removed from the list, representing approximately 19.4 percent of the state's electorate. The total number of voters in the draft roll is 4.4 crore, down from 5.5 crore before the exercise began in June. Bengaluru saw the highest deletions, with its electorate shrinking from 1.03 crore to 56.11 lakh voters.

According to data, 65.4 lakh voters were marked as permanently shifted, 12.3 lakh as deceased, 15.1 lakh as absent, and 7 lakh as duplicate entries. An additional 3.8 lakh were placed in an other category. Booth level officers will serve notices to 43.8 lakh people whose records showed logical discrepancies or could not be mapped to 2002 rolls. These notices, 24.05 lakh of which are in Bengaluru, will be delivered house to house. Voters receiving these notices must appear in person before an Electoral Registration Officer for a hearing, although they may submit documents online via a QR code.

Citizens who find their names missing or marked under the Absent, Shifted, Duplicate, Dead or Others categories can file claims and objections from August 24 to September 22 or 23. Appeals will be heard by October 22, with the final roll published on October 27. The initial release of the draft rolls was marred by technical glitches, including website crashes and corrupted English language PDF files.

Reporting on the event differed by political lean. A center left source focused on the logistical process and the technical failures of the website rollout. A left leaning source emphasized the scale of the deletions and highlighted concerns that the revision process could eliminate genuine voters and influence electoral outcomes.