Karnataka Assembly elections: Can't find names in electoral rolls, complain activists

BENGALURU: The Election Commission of India recently published a draft electoral roll for the upcoming Karnataka Assembly elections in Kannada with Captcha-protected image files, making it difficult for people to access the data.

On Monday, the United Bengaluru, along with Namma Bengaluru Foundation and Bangalore Apartments Federation, submitted a petition to the Election Commission on the discrepancies in the electoral roll. Mr Sridhar Pabbisetty, CEO of Namma Bengaluru Foundation, said, “The voter rolls are supposed to be a freely accessible public document, but today what you find on CEC website are non-searchable PDF files which are images.

Our primary concern is the complication involved in finding out the names in the list and also the violation of language policy, as it is only in Kannada.”
He said, “I can’t find my own name on the voting list from the place where I voted earlier. Now, the question I should ask myself is whether the polling booth has been changed or my name dropped.”

Mr Suresh N.R., convener, United Bengaluru, said, “The ECI manual says that the website should be in text-searchable mode so that people can search. The list which they have published is not readable or searchable.

If you want to search one name in one assembly constituency, you will have to download all the parts and sub-parts then manually search, which is in violation of acts and rules.” Responding to the petition, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Raghavendra.V said, “We will certainly look into the issue and do the needful as per law.”