Draft Electoral Rolls Trigger Voter Frustration In Telangana
Telangana voters have raised concerns over the cumbersome PDF-based system for checking names in the newly released SIR draft electoral rolls.
The release of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) draft electoral rolls in Telangana has left several voters frustrated, with the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Telangana Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) facing criticism over what citizens describe as a clumsy and unnecessarily difficult system for checking their names.
The draft rolls were released on Monday after the completion of the SIR exercise. The revision has already triggered widespread concern, and yet at a time when citizens most need a simple way to check whether their names remain on the rolls, the ECI’s system has made the process needlessly complicated.
The biggest problem is the reliance on large PDF electoral rolls. Instead of giving citizens a straightforward, voter‑friendly interface to check the newly published draft roll, the system requires them to identify their Assembly constituency, polling station and relevant part before downloading the corresponding roll. In practice, voters may have to go through several PDFs, particularly if polling station or part numbers have changed during the revision.
The PDFs themselves have also added to the problem. Several citizens have complained online that the documents are image‑based rather than proper text‑searchable files, making the familiar “Ctrl+F” search useless. One Hyderabad discussion described voters having to convert the PDFs into text before searching them.
“This is an extraordinary failure of basic digital accessibility. First they took the forms and revised the existing rolls, and then made the voter feel scared about whether their vote was still in the roll or not. When one decides to open the rolls, they then intentionally decide to make our lives even harder,” a voter from Domalguda said.
Although the ECI’s national voter portal does provide an EPIC‑based search facility, the search does not include the draft rolls. Citizens trying to cross‑check the newly published rolls are still confronted with cumbersome PDF files and unclear navigation.
The Absent / Shifted / Dead and Duplicate (ASDD) lists have also created another layer of confusion. Election officials themselves have stressed the need to carefully re‑verify absent, shifted, dead and duplicate cases to prevent genuine voters from being wrongly removed. But the ASDD lists are released only in Telugu across the state, creating severe accessibility issues for voters who cannot read Telugu.
With claims and objections open until September 16, the authorities still have time to fix the mess. A proper searchable database, EPIC‑based draft‑roll verification, accessible English and Telugu ASDD lists, and text‑searchable PDFs can allow voters to easily and properly check their details.
