Gender bias creeps into electoral rolls

THE NEW INDIAN ELECTION Part - III

For all the deployment of central paramilitary forces, electronic voting machines and scrutiny of candidates, there is one way in which the election process can be subverted even a year before elections are held "" by tampering with the electoral rolls.

In continuation of its attempts to micro-manage elections, the Election Commission is now extrapolating the data of the rolls with that of the census, and sometimes even the NSS data, to detect cases of fraud.

An interesting phenomenon that has come to light is that of 'female voticide'. This is the gradual removal of female voters from an Assembly segment by not tampering with the total number of voters, but by replacing them with fake male voters. This gender bias is there because it is difficult to get female voters to impersonate others.

The Election Commission has devised a way of detecting this malpractice. For example, in Uttar Pradesh, the commission took the average male- female ratio in the state, which is around 890 females to every 1,000 males, and then extrapolated it to the Assembly segment voter lists. In Shahganj, a reserved seat in UP, the ratio seemed unusually depressed at 602 females to 1,000 males.

When the rolls were scrutinised it was found that names of 31,000 female voters present in the earlier lists had been deleted and 32,000 male voters added. The irony is that this was not an isolated case and several examples abound of female voticide. "In this way, elections can be swung without even putting up a fight," said an Election Commission official.

Weeding out dead voters is also an issue as their identities are taken over on the polling day by impersonators. For this and extra voters being added, census and NSS data on households are extrapolated on voter lists. In Uttar Pradesh again, the results were astounding.

The EC found to its surprise that as many as 190 voters were registered at a single house. "Since 190 people cannot possibly live under one roof, electoral officers are sent to such aberrant door numbers and real voters verified," said an official.

"The right to vote is not enforceable and we also find that people will not report on their neighbours once they move out or if someone dies in the locality. Therefore, we have to undertake the exercise ourselves through frequent revisions," said an EC official.

The Booth Level Officer is a concept that has been lately introduced to update electoral rolls. The successful experiment of using photo identity rolls, that is electoral rolls with photographs of the concerned voter against his or her name, was held in Tripura and is now being attempted in Delhi.