New Delhi, Sept. 27 -- The Election Commission of India has announced a series of decisions on issues that two election commissioners had raised in internal communications over the past 10 months, ranging from changes to voter registration forms to access to electoral roll databases and the functioning of its IT systems.

The decisions were taken at a meeting of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi on Saturday.

The development comes days after The Indian Express reported that Joshi and Sandhu had recorded objections on at least 14 occasions over a 10-month period to decisions and orders, some of which they said were issued without their knowledge.

Here are the key issues raised by the two commissioners and the Election Commission's (EC) response or decision:

Changes to Form 6

Joshi objected to changes to Form 6, used for enrolling new voters, saying the statutory form prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, could not be modified without amending the Rules. Sandhu concurred with him.

After an SIR-related declaration was subsequently added to the online version of Form 6 on the Election Commission's ECINET platform, Sandhu again objected, saying the statutory form had been altered without amending the relevant rules. He described the change as "unauthorised/illegal" and sought its removal.

EC's response: The commission said the additional declaration, which requires new voters to provide details of their own or their parents' or grandparents' entries in the electoral roll prepared during the previous SIR, had been upheld by the Supreme Court. It said the declaration was specific to the SIR exercise and that, outside an SIR, the regular forms prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, would be used.

Access to electoral roll database

Sandhu and Joshi had raised concerns over centralisation of the electoral roll database and access to it available to statutory election authorities in states. Joshi proposed an audit to ensure that nobody other than statutory authorities had credentials to make changes to the database, while Sandhu questioned restrictions on access available to state officials.

EC's response: The commission said field officers have role-based access to ECINET according to their statutory powers. A committee headed by a senior deputy election commissioner and including an independent IIT or IIIT expert will review ECINET to "double-check" its compliance with election laws and rules.

Goa's 97 voters

Following a Supreme Court order, electoral registration officers (EROs) in Goa examined cases of voters flagged for "logical discrepancies" and found 97 eligible for inclusion. However, according to the reported correspondence, the software did not have an option to record the EROs' decision and restore their names.

The Goa CEO's office wrote eight times seeking a rollback option, but the voters remained outside the final roll.

EC's response: The poll panel said BLOs have been directed to visit the left-out voters and collect their forms. Of the 97 voters, 81 have already filled Form 6 for inclusion. The EC has also decided that during the ongoing SIR, BLOs will visit voters issued notices for being unmapped or having logical discrepancies, collect their documents and upload them on ECINET for a decision by the ERO.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.