SC seeks ECI’s reply on petition challenging deletion of 46 lakh names from voters’ list in AP and Telangana

Kodali contested that the ECI had employed a software, the algorithm of which was neither transparent nor public in the preparation of voters’ list across the country, particularly in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The petitioner said that the alleged flawed software resulted in the deletion of 27 lakh voters in Telangana and 19 lakh voters in Andhra Pradesh. The deletion was in violation of the procedure and the law.

Kodali said that to purify the electoral rolls, the ECI, in 2015, suo motu deleted 46 lakh entries from the electoral rolls in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and linked the Electors’ Photo Identity Card (‘EPIC’) with Unique Identification (‘UID’) or Aadhaar.

Voters deprived of voting rights

The petition also alleged that the Election Commission seeded EPIC data with the State Resident Data Hub (SRDH) and allowed the state governments to access and copy EPIC data.

“While the EPIC-Aadhaar linking was carried out under the National Electoral Rolls Purification and Authentication Programme (‘NERPAP’), rest of it were carried out without specific policy, guidelines, or authorisation
in any form,” the petitioner argued.

Kodali had filed the PIL in the high court saying millions of unsuspecting voters would be deprived of their right to franchise during the then upcoming state elections in December 2018.

During the pendency, a large number of voters in Hyderabad found their names deleted from the electoral rolls on the day of polling.

“ECI’s actions to ‘purify’ the electoral rolls — using an automated process that employed data received from Aadhaar and state governments and without proper notice or consent of the voters — is a blatant infringement on the right to vote,” the petitioner argued.

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Invasion on privacy

“Likewise, the ECI’s actions to permit electronic linkages between EPIC data, Aadhaar, and SRDH is an unconstitutional invasion on voter privacy and the right against voter profiling,” he added.

“Despite these glaring violations, the high court accepted the ECI’s counter affidavit and dismissed the PIL,” the petitioner submitted before the top court.

“Lakhs of voters in the two states were deprived of their voting rights without following due process and egregiously, the ECI’s decision to create electronic linkages between voter ID and other government-owned databases exposed voters to be profiled, targeted, and manipulated by entities with access to the data,” the petitioner said.

“The ECI’s actions, therefore, threatens the sanctity and integrity of elections,” the petitioner argued.