India has begun one of the largest voter-verification drives in the world, as officials race against time to update a database covering nearly half a billion voters across 12 states and union territories.
With national and state elections approaching, the government has just seven weeks to clean and verify voter records that are crucial to the functioning of the world’s largest democracy.
The scale is massive. India has almost one billion eligible voters, making its electoral roll the largest on Earth. Authorities say the last major update, done in 2003, is now badly outdated due to migration, deaths, and illegal entries.
Why India’s Voter List Needs Fixing
Over the past two decades, India has undergone major changes.
Millions of people have moved from villages to cities. Many older voters have died. Others have been wrongly added or never removed from the system.
Election officials say these problems threaten the integrity of the voting process.
That is why 12 states and union territories, home to around 500 million people, are now carrying out emergency updates to the voter database. The work began in early November and must be finished by New Year’s Eve in key states like Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.
Half a Million Workers on the Ground
To complete the task, the government has deployed more than 500,000 civil servants, many of them school teachers, clerks, and local officials.
They are working as Booth Level Officers, visiting homes, checking documents, and confirming identities.
One of them is Prem Lata, a schoolteacher who now spends her mornings and evenings verifying voter records.
Since early November, she has been waking up at 5 a.m. and often working late into the night.
For this extra duty, she receives an additional 1,000 rupees (about $11) per month.
“It’s exhausting,” she says, “but it is important work for democracy.”
A Manual, High-Pressure Operation
Most of the verification is still done by hand. Civil servants enter data into government systems after checking physical records and local information.
In cities like Noida, officials such as Ruby Verma are coordinating teams of workers who move street by street, making sure that:
- Dead voters are removed
- Migrants are correctly registered
- Duplicate names are deleted
- Illegal entries are flagged
The pressure is high because any mistake could affect election results.
Why the Deadline Matters
Uttar Pradesh alone has more than 150 million voters.
If its voter list is not cleaned on time, millions could be wrongly included — or excluded — when elections begin.
Election officials say accurate voter rolls are essential for:
- Free and fair elections
- Preventing fraud
- Ensuring every eligible citizen can vote
A Test for Indian Democracy
India’s election system is often praised for managing huge turnouts and peaceful voting across vast distances. But that system depends on one key thing: a reliable voter list.
With only weeks left before the deadline, civil servants across the country are working at full speed.
As one official put it,
“Democracy begins with the voter roll. If that is wrong, everything else is at risk.”