India, March 2 -- When the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise last June, conspiracy theorists cried wolf about fears of widespread disenfranchisement. The first data to emerge from the process, Bihar's draft-roll, should have allayed such fears. Deletions were numerically significant but proportionally far from alarming, and they did not seem to correlate with expected political markers, such as Muslim population or closely fought constituencies. The absolute turnout too increased in the 2025 Bihar elections, which should have laid to rest fears about mass disenfranchisement.

Eight months later, after the exercise was conducted in nine states (excluding Assam, which had only Special...