India, Sept. 29 -- The Election Commission of India's (ECI) sweeping changes in the special intensive revision has left booth-level officers, many of whom are government school teachers, struggling to balance their classroom responsibilities with new duties to visit every voter's home and collect documents - especially in the middle of exam season.

On Saturday, ECI announced large-scale changes in the SIR procedure, saying voters issued notices "for being unmapped and logical discrepancies" will no longer need to appear for a personal hearing before the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO). BLOs will visit such voters at home to collect documents, which will be uploaded to the ECINet portal "for decision by the ERO."

A hearing will be h...