The ECI’s unfinished lessons

‘While updating electoral rolls is necessary, voters must be able to check why their names have been left out and challenge errors.’ | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

India’s electoral system has evolved through successive efforts to make elections more inclusive, enforceable and accessible. Today, the mass revision of electoral rolls, suspicious voter deletions, and questions about access to polling records test the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) ability to ensure that every eligible voter can participate equally. Its history offers lessons for the challenges ahead.

Comment | A split verdict, faltering remedies and people’s power

When India prepared its first electoral roll, nearly 28 lakh women were left off because they were identified through their relationships to men rather than being registered under their own names. Sukumar Sen, India’s first Chief Election Commissioner, worked to ensure that women were enrolled in their own right, and by the 1957 elections, about 85% of those affected had been registered under their own names. 

This lesson matters now as the ECI undertakes its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. In Bihar, around 65 lakh names were missing from the draft roll published in August 2025. The Commission cited reasons such as deaths, migration and duplicate entries. While updating electoral rolls is necessary, voters must be able to check why their names have been left out and challenge errors. The Supreme Court directed the ECI to publish the list of excluded voters along with the reasons for exclusion.

Editorial | ​Hide and seek: On the ECI and the election process