Karnataka's final electoral roll released; nearly 1 crore voters deleted
What's the story
The final electoral roll for Karnataka has been published, revealing a total of 4,55,00,011 voters. This is a reduction of almost 99.32 lakh from the previous figure of 5,54,32,314 registered voters before the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The new list adds 8.64 lakh voters to the draft roll, which had initially excluded over 1.07 crore names.
Roll access
Constituency-wise rolls available online
The constituency-wise electoral rolls can be accessed on the Chief Electoral Officer's website.
Voters can verify their enrollment through the Election Commission's electoral search portal by entering their voter ID number and completing a captcha.
The final electorate includes over 2.25 crore men, 2.29 crore women, and 2,841 third-gender voters.
It also has over 6.83 lakh voters aged between 18 and 19 years and more than 3.92 lakh people above 85 years of age.
Deletion details
Draft roll deleted over 80 lakh names
The draft roll had deleted 80.62 lakh names of voters who had shifted residence or were untraceable.
Other deletions included 16.39 lakh entries of deceased voters, over seven lakh duplicate entries, and 3.83 lakh under "Others."
Those whose names were deleted as shifted or untraceable had to submit Form 6 applications for inclusion in the final roll.
Election authorities received a total of 7,87,534 such applications, including new voter registrations.
Political backlash
Controversy erupts over mass voter deletion
The mass deletion of voters has sparked a political controversy in Karnataka.
The Congress party has expressed concerns over the possible mass exclusion of minorities, the poor, and marginalized communities.
They have called for investigations into alleged "Vote Chori" (vote theft) incidents where thousands of Form-7 deletion applications were submitted automatically or through third parties without proper verification.