Latest news with #voterregistration
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump administration presses Pennsylvania for answers on how it manages voter rolls
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters. This article is made possible through Spotlight PA's collaboration with Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania's free newsletters here. The U.S. Department of Justice is asking Pennsylvania for a wide range of information on how it manages voter registration and voter rolls, as part of what it calls 'nationwide efforts' to monitor compliance with a key federal voting statute. In a June 23 letter to Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, the department asked for 14 categories of information on the state's voter registration activities, including how voters are added to and removed from the voter rolls, and how the state prevents unauthorized access to its system. Votebeat and Spotlight PA obtained a copy of the letter, which was signed by Maureen Riordan, the new acting chief of the voting section in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. The letter is the latest in a series of requests the Civil Rights Division has sent to states involving their compliance with federal voting statutes. This one specifically cites the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, a 2002 law that overhauled voter registration and election administration. Riordan requested a response within 30 days. Amy Gulli, spokesperson for Pennsylvania's Department of State, said that the agency intended to respond, but hadn't done so as of Wednesday. David Becker, an election lawyer who previously worked in the Civil Rights Division and now leads the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research, noted that nearly all of the requests for information cited specific sections of HAVA to justify them, except for one asking for the process the state uses to identify and remove noncitizens from the voter rolls. 'That's because there isn't one, and DOJ has no jurisdiction to request that data,' he said in a text message. Becker said the request otherwise didn't raise any specific concerns. Arizona, Colorado, and Wisconsin election officials have also received letters from the Justice Department, each one with a different set of requests or allegations. A letter sent in May to Arizona's Secretary of State Adrian Fontes alleged that the state was not properly verifying voters' identities as required by HAVA, and threatened a lawsuit, Votebeat reported in June. Fontes, a Democrat, responded that state election officials conduct a complete residency and citizenship check and fully comply with HAVA. A letter from early June sent to the Wisconsin Elections Commission said the state was not properly resolving administrative complaints as required under HAVA; the commission has been summarily dismissing HAVA complaints that are about the agency's own actions, based on a 2022 Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion. Colorado received a letter from the department in May asking Colorado for 'all records' related to the 2024 election in response to a complaint the department had received. The Justice Department also recently sued North Carolina over allegations that it had failed to maintain an accurate voter list as required by HAVA, and sued Orange County, California, over an alleged failure to provide some records related to the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls. The letter to Pennsylvania does not mention any complaint, or assert the state has done anything wrong. 'We very much appreciate your cooperation in our nationwide efforts to monitor HAVA compliance,' it concludes. A spokesperson with the Justice Department declined to comment. The New York Times reported on July 2 that senior officials in the Justice Department are exploring whether they can criminally charge election officials for not sufficiently safeguarding their computer systems. Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@ Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Did SLO County clerk-recorder violate the Public Records Act? Here's a Reality Check
A California man filed a lawsuit against San Luis Obispo County and Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano, alleging the two violated the Public Records Act when he asked for voter registration statistics. But the lawsuit went nowhere quickly, because the county says it didn't violate state law seeing as the man's request didn't qualify as a Public Records Act in the first place. The lawsuit, filed on June 24 by Shiloh Marx, claims Cano did not respond to his request for information on March 11 or his follow-up email on June 17 that requested voter registration statistics 'to assess election integrity and ensure compliance with the National Voter Registration Act.' Three days later, Cano responded to Marx's request for information on June 27, and he withdrew his lawsuit the same day, according to a dismissal document obtained by The Tribune. On Tuesday, however, Cal Coast News reporter Karen Velie published a story about the lawsuit and its accusations against the clerk-recorder. But Velie originally failed to include the county's position that there was never an actual Public Records Act request, nor the fact that the lawsuit was dismissed. The Tribune looked into the matter as part of its Reality Check series. Cano told The Tribune that her office provided Marx with the information he was looking for and explained why it fell outside the parameters of the Public Records Act. 'While the initial inquiry received from Mr. Shiloh Marx in March 2025 did not constitute a formal request under the California Public Records Act, our office nonetheless compiled and provided the voter registration data he requested as a professional courtesy,' Cano told The Tribune. In its response, the SLO County Counsel's Office explained to Marx that his initial inquiry was not treated as a public records request 'due to both the subject matter, which made no reference to the (California Public Records Act) and, more significantly, because your request did not make any request for inspection or copying of a 'record' or 'records,' but instead posed a series of questions to the (Registrar of Voters).' In other words, Marx did not frame his initial inquiry as a request for records, but rather a request for 'information.' He asked for various statistics on inactive voter registrations, which are not considered records. Cano said that Velie did not attempt to reach her for comment before publishing her story on Cal Coast News on Tuesday. After seeing the story, Cano gave Velie what she called a 'courtesy email' to clarify the county's position and provide its formal response to Marx. 'Given these facts, the article's implication that records were 'withheld' or that no response was provided is inaccurate,' Cano told Velie over email. 'As always, I'm happy to provide information that ensures public confidence in our elections process.' As of Thursday morning, Velie updated her story to include Cano's response to Marx that there was no public records request made. She did not include the fact that the case had been dismissed. The headline remains 'SLO County clerk-recorder accused of violating Public Records Act.' Velie did not immediately respond to The Tribune's request for comment. The California Public Records Act grants the public the right to access and obtain copies of public records held by state and local agencies. This law ensures transparency and allows the public to monitor government activities. The Public Records Act requires government agencies to respond to requests within 10 days to confirm the request's receipt, though it does not necessarily require documents to be produced by then, especially if the request is voluminous. If Marx's request were made under the Public Records Act, the county's failure to respond within 10 days may have put it in violation of the law. However, Marx never mentioned the Public Records Act in his initial request, which he instead framed as a 'formal request for information.' He asked Cano four questions about SLO County's voter registrar, including the number of active and inactive registered voters, how many voters were labeled as inactive in the past year and how many voters hadn't voted in the last two, three, four and five or more elections. Marx, an 'election integrity' advocate according to his website, said he made similar requests to all California counties except for Los Angeles County. He has also filed nearly identical lawsuits in many. He posted on X that he used Grok, Elon Musk's AI chatbot, to draft his lawsuits. 'I am not a lawyer,' he wrote on X and told The Tribune. The Tribune spoke to Marx on June 27. When asked about the county's position that his initial request was not a formal records request, Marx said he 'can see the interpretation of that.' He also told The Tribune that if he received a response from Cano, it would be satisfactory to end his complaint. The county responded later that day, and Marx filed to dismiss his lawsuit that same day, too. 'The San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder's Office is committed to transparency, accuracy and compliance with both state and federal election laws,' Cano told The Tribune. 'We encourage all members of the public and the press to review the full context of such matters and to reach out directly with questions. As always, maintaining public trust in our elections is, and will always be, one of our highest priorities.'
Al Jazeera
6 days ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Why is India forcing 80 million people to justify their right to vote?
Mumbai, India – A move by India's top election body, the Election Commission of India (ECI), to re-scrutinise nearly 80 million voters' documents in a bid to weed out 'foreign illegal immigrants' has prompted widespread fears of mass disenfranchisement and deportations in the world's largest democracy. On June 24, the ECI announced that each of the nearly 80 million voters – equivalent to the entire population of the United Kingdom – in the eastern Indian state of Bihar will need to re-register as voters by July 26. Those unable to do so will lose their right to vote and will be reported as 'suspected foreign nationals', as per the ECI directive and could even face jail or deportation. The state's legislative elections are expected to be held in October or November. Critics say the move is a backdoor route to implement the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has proposed in the past as a way to identify 'illegal immigrants' and deport them. The move comes at a time when thousands of largely Bengali-speaking Muslims have been rounded up, and many of them have been deported from India as alleged Bangladeshi immigrants in the last few weeks. Al Jazeera sent questions to the ECI about the move, but the commission has not responded, despite reminder emails. What is the controversy about? Bihar is India's poorest state in terms of per capita income (PDF), and more than one-third of its population falls under the Indian government's threshold of poverty. But as the country's third-most populous state, it is also one of India's most politically important battlegrounds. Since 2005, Modi's Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been in power in Bihar in alliance with a regional party, the Janata Dal (United) (JDU), for the most part, apart from short periods of rule by opposition-led alliances. Coming ahead of state elections, the election monitor's move has led to confusion, panic and a scramble for documents among some of the country's poorest communities in rural Bihar, say critics. Opposition politicians as well as civil society groups have argued that wide portions of Bihar's population will not be able to provide citizenship documents within the short window they have to justify their right to vote, and would be left disenfranchised. India's principal opposition party, the Indian National Congress, along with its Bihar alliance partner, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), called for a shutdown of Bihar on Wednesday, with Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi leading the protests in Bihar's capital, Patna. A clutch of petitioners, including opposition leaders and civil society groups, have approached India's Supreme Court asking for the exercise to be scrapped. The court is expected to hear these petitions on Thursday. The ruling BJP has been alleging a massive influx of Muslim immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh and Myanmar and has backed the ECI's move. In fact, it has demanded that the move be replicated across the country. Al Jazeera reached out to BJP's chief spokesperson and media in-charge, Anil Baluni, through text and email for the party's comments. He has not responded yet. But political observers and election transparency experts caution that the move carries deep implications for the future of Indian democracy and the rights of voters. What is the Election Commission's justification for the move? The ECI's June 24 announcement said that the exercise was meant to ensure that 'no ineligible voter is included in the roll', and cited reasons like rapid urbanisation, frequent migration, new voters, dead voters and 'the inclusion of foreign illegal immigrants' in the list as reasons. The last such full revision was carried out in 2003, but since then, electoral rolls have been regularly updated and cleaned, including last year before the national elections. According to the ECI, those voters who were on the 2003 voter list have to only re-submit voter registration forms, while those who were added later, depending on when they were added, would have to submit proof of their date of birth as well as place of birth as well, along with proofs of one or both their parents. Of the 79.6 million-odd voters in Bihar, the ECI has estimated that only 29 million voters would have to verify their credentials. But independent estimates suggest this number could be upwards of 47 million. The exercise involves ECI officials first going door-to-door and distributing enumeration forms to each registered voter. The voters are then expected to produce documents, attach these documents and submit them along with the forms to election officials, all this by July 26. The draft new electoral roll will be published on August 1, and those who have been left out will get a month more to object. Jagdeep Chhokar, from the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), a 25-year-old nonprofit that has been working towards electoral reforms, said the ECI's choice to scrutinise all new voters added since 2003 casts a shadow on all the elections that the state has seen since then. 'Is the ECI saying that there has been a huge scam in Bihar's voter list since 2003? Is it saying that everyone who got elected from Bihar in these 22 years is not valid, then?' asked Chhokar. What is the criticism of this exercise? First, the timeline: to reach out to nearly 80 million at least twice, within a month, is a herculean task in itself. The ECI has appointed nearly 100,000 officers and roped in nearly 400,000 volunteers for the task. Second, despite the mammoth nature of the exercise and its implications, the ECI did not hold any public consultations on the subject before announcing the move in a written order on June 24, a move decried by experts. 'That such a big decision was taken and brought out in such a secretive way, without consultation, raises questions around the ECI's partiality,' said Pushpendra, a former professor and dean at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, who is based in Bihar and who did not wish to give his full name. Third, experts warn that millions of legitimate voters in Bihar will struggle to provide the documents that the ECI has asked them to furnish. The election authority has ruled that it will not accept the Aadhar card, a unique identity document issued by the Indian government, nor the voter identity card issued by the ECI itself, which has historically sufficed as the document people need to show to vote. Instead, it has asked voters to submit from a range of 11 listed documents – from birth certificates to passports, to forest rights certificates or education certificates issued by the state. But Bihar has the lowest literacy rate (PDF) in the country, at just 62 percent against the national average of 73 percent. A 2023 survey by the Bihar government showed that just 14.71 percent of Bihar's population had cleared grade 10 in school, thus rendering education certificates – one of the documents voters could show – out of the reach for most of the population. Similarly, government data shows that Bihar also has one of the lowest birth registration rates in the country, with 25 percent of births not being registered. That means birth certificates are out of reach for a quarter of the population. Pushpendra, the academic, said that it was the state's failure to ensure that people have the documentation it seeks of legitimate citizens. 'You cannot punish people if the state lacks capacity to distribute these documents,' he said. Fourth, the ECI's timing has also been criticised by many: The state sees its annual monsoon season between June and October, and routinely sees devastating floods as a result of the rains. State government data show two-thirds of Bihar is flood-prone, and the annual damage due to Bihar's floods accounts for 30-40 percent of the total flood damage in India. Last year, more than 4.5 million people were affected by the worst floods that Bihar experienced in decades. 'It's these flood-prone areas that are the most deficient in proper documentation because they routinely suffer from devastating floods that wash away entire villages,' said Pushpendra. Finally, the ECI's exercise signals a fundamental shift in the way it seeks to enrol voters, said ADR's Chhokar. 'At no point in the country's 70 years has the voting eligibility criterion changed – voters were always supposed to provide their date of birth,' Chhokar said. 'This exercise changes this criterion to say that voters now have to also provide their location of birth.' What's the political significance of this move? Even though the ECI is an autonomous body, its targeting of undocumented immigrants mirrors the BJP's rhetoric on the issue, experts have pointed out. Ever since it lost its parliamentary majority last year and was forced to enter a coalition, Prime Minister Modi's BJP has alleged that a large-scale influx of Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi immigrants into India has altered India's demographics. India's Border Security Force (BSF), responsible for guarding India's borders against such undocumented immigration, falls under the Modi government's Ministry of Home Affairs, led by close Modi aide, Amit Shah. Party leaders led by Modi himself have made such claims of a massive flood of Rohingya and Bangladeshi immigrants in nearly every regional election since then, be it in Maharashtra, Jharkhand or Delhi. Last year in December, the party's leaders met the ECI to submit alleged evidence that Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi citizens had been illegally enrolled as voters. Indian laws permit only Indian citizens to vote. For the ECI to now accept this contention, without disclosing any evidence it has about noncitizens being enrolled as voters, is driving many suspicious. 'The ECI has not been able to provide any reason for why it thought this revision was needed. They have no data to demonstrate its claims [of undocumented immigrants in voter lists],' said Apoorvanand, a professor at the University of Delhi and political commentator who hails from Bihar and also did not wish to be identified by his full name. 'Which is why this has no longer remained a bureaucratic, neutral exercise of a constitutional body. Its politics is very suspicious,' he added. For its part, the BJP has come out in support of this exercise and has even demanded that it be rolled out in other parts of the country. Pushpendra, the former TISS dean, said traditionally marginalised communities and religious minorities would be the worst-hit in this voter revision drive, because they are the least likely to hold documents like a passport, educational certificate or birth certificate. 'These communities have, traditionally, always supported the [opposition] RJD and the Congress,' he said. Simply put, if they can't vote, it's an advantage for BJP. Is this just about the election? Over the last few months, the Modi government, as well as BJP governments in various states, have intensified efforts to identify undocumented migrants in the country and deport them. In at least eight Indian states, hundreds have been rounded up, detained on charges of being undocumented immigrants. This drive has focused largely on Bengali-speaking Muslim migrants. Thousands of alleged Bangladeshis have been pushed into Bangladesh at gunpoint by Indian authorities. Authorities have been accused of not following procedure and hurriedly deporting them. Often, even Indian Muslim citizens have been deported in the drive. For many, this is reminiscent of the Modi government's plans to create a National Register of Citizens (NRC), which would identify and then deport those found staying without any documents. In December 2019, Home Minister Amit Shah had set 2024 as the deadline for the NRC exercise and insisted that 'each and every illegal immigrant will be thrown out' by 2024. Such a move affects Muslims disproportionately, thanks to India's amended citizenship laws, which fast-track citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians, while leaving Muslims out of it. The laws, approved in 2019 by the Indian Parliament, were operationalised last year in March by the Modi government, and will help non-Muslims avoid deportation and jail if found to be staying without documents. In Bihar, Muslims make up 17 percent of the state's population, and number about 17.6 million across the state. Apoorvanand, the academic, said the Bihar electoral roll revision was NRC, in effect. 'Ultimately, the ECI is asking citizens to prove their citizenship by furnishing documents,' he said. Chhokar from ADR, which was the first organisation to petition the Supreme Court asking it to scrap the exercise, said the consequences of the revision would be grim. 'You might have an electoral roll in which half the state's population would be left without a right to vote,' he said.
BBC News
08-07-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Automatic registration looking unlikely for next Senedd election
It will be a "tall order" to ensure that the automatic registration of voters is in place for the next Senedd election, the first minister has Welsh government had hoped to introduce the changes ahead of next May's former cabinet member who helped drive the plans described Eluned Morgan's comments as "disappointing".It is estimated that around 400,000 people in Wales are either missing or incorrectly registered. Automatic voter registration would mean that voters would not have to register themselves in order to be able to the current system, voters must register to vote authorities must then contact households to check that the existing electoral register is accurate and to invite residents to apply to be on the Senedd passed legislation to enable automatic voter registration last year. When the new law was first proposed, the government's counsel general at the time Mick Antoniw said the "ambition" was for the changes to be in place in time for the 2026 Senedd election. Asked by Plaid Cymru Member of the Senedd (MS) Adam Price on Tuesday if the government was still committed to that timetable, Morgan said: "It is important to manage expectations around the ability to roll out those automatic registrations in time for the next election."Automatic registration pilot schemes currently under way in four local authorities are due to end in September and Morgan told the Senedd the results would then need to be evaluated by the Electoral Commission."I think we've got to be realistic and practical about what that means in practice, because there will be quite a lot of work to be done before there's an ability to roll them out nationally," she said."I think that it's going to be a tall order within about three months."Local authorities have made it clear that they think that might be very difficult."Responding to the comments, Antoniw - now a backbench Labour MS - said: "It is very disappointing that it will not be in place for 2026 so we must redouble efforts to maximise registration under the current paper registration system that remains."Antoniw added that automatic registration "must" be in place for the 2027 local Blair, director of Electoral Reform Society Cymru, described the news as "disappointing but not a surprise"."The timescale, set by the Welsh government themselves, has made this decision seem somewhat inevitable," she said. "The Welsh government should be clear. "They should either show real leadership in making automatic registration happen or confirm as soon as possible what plans will be in place in its stead in just ten months' time to ensure as many people as possible are registered to vote."
The Independent
08-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Fears new ID rules could deny millions right to vote in key Indian election
India 's top election body is facing mounting criticism over its sweeping revision of voter registration ahead of an important state election in Bihar, with activists and opposition groups raising alarms over the potential for large-scale disenfranchisement in one of the country's poorest states. The drive to verify the identity of all of the state's 78 million voters, launched on 24 June ahead of elections later this year, has strict documentation requirements, triggering concerns it would lead to exclusion of vulnerable groups, especially those unable to produce the extensive paperwork required to prove their citizenship. The Election Commission of India has said that some 49.6 million voters whose names were included in a similar exercise in 2003 need not submit any further documents. This leaves almost 30 million voters potentially vulnerable. While the Election Commission insists the process, known as a Special Intensive Revision (SIR), is a routine update to ensure the accuracy of electoral rolls, opposition leaders, civil society groups and petitioners in the Supreme Court warn it echoes the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, which left nearly two million people at risk of statelessness. Chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar defended the move, stating that the Commission had engaged extensively with political parties. 'The ECI has invited all recognised political parties for interaction. No one was satisfied with the current status of electoral rolls for one reason or the other,' he said, noting that more than 5,000 meetings have been held over the past four months with 28,000 party representatives. The electoral rolls are being revised for the first time since 2003 in Bihar. Under the new process, an estimated 29.3 million voters whose names are not listed in the 2003 rolls must now submit at least one of 11 specified documents to establish their eligibility. The deadline to submit these documents is 25 July. Under the new process, those not listed in the 2003 rolls must now submit at least one of 11 specified documents to establish their eligibility. The deadline to submit these documents is 25 July. The draft rolls will be published on 1 August, and a further period from 1 August to 1 September will allow electors to raise claims or objections before the final list of voters is released on 30 September. In a statement to The Independent, Congress spokesperson Saral Patel calls for greater transparency from the poll body, and insisted that while his party was not opposed to voter roll revision in principle, the current process risks repeating the 'tragic precedent' of Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC) – an exercise that left nearly two million people excluded from citizenship lists and mired in legal limbo in 2019. 'The Congress party's stand and demand is very simple: we insist that every eligible voter must be protected,' Patel says. 'The INDIA bloc's meeting with the ECI was based on good faith, not on an objection to due process – we are not against revision per se, but it must be done with great care, and certainly not on the eve of a general election,' he says, referring to an opposition alliance comprising several parties. Social activist Harsh Mander drew a sharp parallel with the deeply divisive NRC in Assam, warning that the exercise risks repeating a painful chapter in Indian history. Speaking to The Independent, Mander, a former civil servant and noted human rights advocate, says the Bihar voter roll overhaul shares the same underlying flaw as the NRC – shifting the burden of proof onto ordinary citizens in a country with patchy documentation systems and deep socio-economic inequalities. 'The whole idea of NRC was one that shifts the burden of proof to ordinary citizens,' he says. 'In India, relying on these documents would be a challenge, more so because in a country like ours, we didn't have the system of record keeping.' But this demand for historical documentation, Mander says, was unrealistic in a country where official record-keeping has long been inconsistent and inaccessible to the poor. 'We have people who don't go to school or didn't have a registered marriage. I didn't have a registered marriage,' he added. 'So in a country that has not relied on these documents, [requiring them] is a huge challenge.' Opposition leaders, including Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Member of Parliament Manoj Jha, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, activist Yogendra Yadav and civil society organisations like the Association for Democratic Reforms and the People's Union for Civil Liberties, have moved the Supreme Court to challenge the revision. They argue the SIR could result in the deletion of lakhs of voter names and would particularly harm women and socio-economically disadvantaged groups. The court has agreed to hear the matter on Thursday but has not stayed the exercise. The EC has said the SIR is necessary due to a range of issues: increased migration, urbanisation, young voters coming of age, unreported deaths, and the inclusion of ineligible names, including suspected illegal immigrants. Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are conducting door-to-door verification and collecting documentation. The commission maintains that every effort is being made to ensure the exercise does not inconvenience the elderly, the disabled, or economically disadvantaged voters. Nonetheless, doubts persist about how easily voters – particularly from marginalised backgrounds – can furnish the required paperwork. Bihar has historically had low levels of official documentation. The 11 documents deemed acceptable include passports, matriculation certificates, birth certificates, government-issued identity cards, and land allotment documents. But data reveals these are beyond the reach of many in the state. For instance, only around 1.57 per cent of Bihar's population was employed in government jobs as per the 2022 Bihar Caste Survey – one of the criteria under the EC's guidelines. Similarly, only two per cent of residents held valid passports as of 2023, and just 14.71 per cent had passed their Class 10 school exams, limiting access to matriculation certificates, reported the Indian Express. Birth registration has historically been poor in Bihar. In 2007, only 713,000 births were registered in a state that saw an estimated 2.8 million births that year, reported the outlet. Certificates like permanent residence documents and caste certificates often require applicants to first furnish other documents, such as Aadhaar (digital identification system) cards and voter IDs, which many lack. Land-related documents are also scarce, with more than 65 per cent of rural households reported to own no land, according to the Socio-Economic and Caste Census of 2011. Patel accuses the EC of failing to account for the socio-economic realities on the ground. 'We call on the Election Commission to be transparent: clarify timelines, ease document requirements, and robustly assist the poor, migrants, and marginalised so that no one is unjustly removed from the voter rolls,' he says. 'The right to vote is not a privilege handed out with a certificate – it is a constitutional guarantee.' Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), who are typically sub-divisional magistrates, are responsible for evaluating the applications and verifying documents. As per the Representation of the People Act, 1950, names can only be deleted or added after proper scrutiny. The commission's 24 June directive mandates that no name be struck off without inquiry and providing the concerned voter with an opportunity to respond. However, a particular section of the EC's instructions has drawn concern. It allows officials to refer 'cases of suspected foreign nationals' to the relevant authority under the Citizenship Act, raising fears of further targeting of minorities. Tejashwi Yadav, leader of the opposition in the Bihar Legislative Assembly, called the revision exercise a 'conspiracy'. 'The last time the routine process of revision of voter list was done was in 2003... it took about two years to complete,' he said. 'Now elections are to be held in November. Two months are left before the notification process begins. That means the Election Commission has to make a new list... of [80 million] people... in just 25 days. And that too when 73 per cent of the state is affected by floods!' Prime minister Narendra Modi 's Bharatiya Janata Party, which is part of the ruling coalition in Bihar, defended the process. State minister Nitin Nabin accused the Congress of trying to obstruct the removal of bogus names. 'If genuine voters are being verified and fake voters are being removed, is Congress sitting here to commit fraud?' he asked. 'Are you trying to gain power through fake votes?' Meanwhile, sources in the EC said similar exercises are being planned for West Bengal and New Delhi starting August, reported the New Indian Express. The last verification of voter rolls in West Bengal and Delhi took place in 2002 and 2008 respectively. In Delhi, individuals added to the electoral rolls after 16 March 2008 will be asked to prove their citizenship to remain on the list.
