When ECINet absorbed ERONet and amalgamated 40 other apps, the alarm bells hadn’t yet rung. When investigative reports revealed the extent of ECINet’s malfunctioning, the ECI responded with excuses, evasiveness, obfuscation. It’s only a technical glitch; it’s only a few errors; voters still have the right to appeal; mistakes can still be corrected… and so on, ad nauseum.

When over 13 crore voters found they had been deleted from the electoral rolls under the auspices of the SIR, the ‘faults’ seemed designed to exclude. It will take more than the measures hurried out by the ECI, more than a stage-managed audit, to restore the people’s faith.

Take our word for it: all is well. That, in a nutshell, is the stubborn defence of the Election Commission of India in the face of mounting evidence that the electoral system is broken, the commission has ceased to function independently, and the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has been an unmitigated horror show.

In its 250-page affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, the ECI did not deny the allegations raised in the investigative report by the Indian Express on 23 September. It dismissed the petitions as ‘misconceived’ and said newspaper reports cannot count as evidence in court. The affidavit asserts that the ECINet cannot be manipulated and that only authorised officers — the electoral registration officer (ERO) and assistant EROs (AEROs) — can add or delete voter names.

There are several reasons why this is unconvincing. The affidavit itself admits that 89 voters in Goa were indeed ‘left out’ of the voter roll by the SIR. Stating that most of the names have since been restored does not answer two key questions. Why were they deleted? And why was the ERO not able to restore them in the first........

© National Herald