Maharashtra request prompts four changes to poll panel software

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has made four modifications to its ECINet software and processes following a request from Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer S Chockalingam. These changes grant Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) increased autonomy in processing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) notices and discrepancies.

Voters who receive notices due to unlinked records or flagged mismatches can now submit documents beyond the initial 13 categories listed in notices. The Maharashtra CEO's office confirmed that the BLO App has been updated with a new "Any other Documents" option to accommodate this.

Additionally, EROs now have greater discretion in deciding cases involving logical discrepancies, previously requiring supporting documents to be sent to District Election Officers (DEOs) for verification. EROs or Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) are now empowered to assess both documents and field-level verification material themselves.

Another change removes the mandatory upload of an "Extract of Last SIR" in every logical discrepancy case, a requirement that ERO Chockalingam argued was unnecessary as the software already compares records with the previous SIR roll to identify discrepancies. This change is expected to reduce the workload of BLOs.

These modifications come after an investigation by The Indian Express revealed that software controls were limiting the powers of officers tasked with managing SIR proceedings.