KOLKATA, December 30, 2025 - The Election Commission (EC) has intervened to provide relief to over 1.3 lakh voters in West Bengal who were erroneously issued hearing notices due to a technical glitch. The issue arose during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, where the names of these voters, although present in the 2002 electoral rolls, failed to appear in the Booth Level Officer (BLO) app. This was due to problems encountered while digitizing the 2002 electoral rolls.

The EC acknowledged that the linkage of the 2002 SIR was not available in the app for many voters, causing them to be marked as "unmapped," even though they had valid self or progeny linkage to the 2002 SIR. While voters could be tracked using the hard copy of the 2002 SIR list, BLOs reportedly failed to locate them in the app. The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal, Manoj Agarwal, stated that the hearing notices generated due to this non-mapping would be canceled. He further directed Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and District Election Officers (DEOs) to verify the extract of the 2002 SIR and upload the relevant documents to resolve the cases. BLOs are also instructed to reverify and upload photos and documents. However, voters will still be required to attend hearings if discrepancies are found when comparing the app data with the hard copies of the 2002 electoral rolls.

This "system error," as acknowledged by the ECI, has led the commission to instruct ground-level DROs, EROs, and BLOs to cease summoning voters for hearings if the "unmapped" status is solely due to technical issues. The problem stems from an "incomplete" conversion of the PDF format of the 2002 rolls into CSV format, which caused linkage failures. Despite this glitch, the system automatically generated and sent hearing notices to both voters and BLOs. The fresh directive now mandates field staff to withhold any remaining notices that have not yet been served.

The Election Commission's rare admission of a technical glitch comes amidst increased scrutiny of its systems. A recent investigation highlighted the ECI's use of a new algorithm and the resumption of de-duplication software without clear protocols or guidelines. The investigation also revealed that the ECI had informed the Supreme Court that de-duplication software had not been in use since 2022 due to unsatisfactory results but reactivated it earlier in December 2025 during the roll revision in eight states and three Union Territories. This reactivation occurred after the ECI scrapped the "ground verification process" outlined in its manual for de-duplication.

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has already resulted in 86.46 lakh people being marked as 'unmapped' and 3.7 crore people being removed from the draft voter list across eight states and three UTs. The draft voter list for Uttar Pradesh is scheduled to be published on December 31, 2025. This incident underscores the critical need for robust and accurate technology in electoral processes to ensure that eligible voters are not disenfranchised due to technical errors. The Election Commission's decision to cancel the erroneous notices and implement a manual verification process demonstrates a commitment to addressing these challenges and upholding the integrity of the electoral rolls.