EC releases video for EROs on SIR notice disposal; no written instructions so far

POLITY – ELECTIONS

5 OCTOBER 2026

• Days after adding new options to its ERONET portal that allow Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) to dispose of notice cases without hearings or documents, the Election Commission (EC) is now explaining the changes to officials through a demonstration video prepared by the Election Commission’s Information Technology (IT) Department, with no written documents circulated so far. 
• The three new options are available to the EROs in the 10 States and Union Territories where the third phase of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is still under way, according to the video accessed by The Hindu.
• The EROs across States, who have the final authority over the preparation of electoral rolls in their constituencies, had been asking for these options since the beginning of the notice phase.
• The changes come amid allegations of centralisation of ERONET under the ECINET software that “curtailed” the powers of the field officers.
• The options have been introduced even as final rolls have already been published in nine of the 16 States and three U.T.s where SIR is under way, and 13 States and U.T.s where the exercise was completed in the first two phases.
• In these States, including West Bengal where 27 lakh of the 60 lakh electors served notices were left out of the final roll, officials could not clear cases without hearings or documents.
• Over nine crore notices have been served in the second and the third phases so far.
• The EC has prescribed a list of 12 documents for electors served notices over “logical discrepancies” and “no mapping”.
• According to the demonstration video recorded on October 1, in cases where a notice has been generated and the booth-level officer (BLO) has uploaded documents, the ERO can mark the elector “found OK” for inclusion in the final roll without uploading a hearing order.
• Where no documents have been collected by the BLO, the ERO can still mark the elector eligible after uploading a hearing order and selecting the option “Proceed marking this elector as eligible without BLO documents”.
• Earlier, a hearing order was required only to mark an elector as “found not eligible”, along with the reason for ineligibility.
• The EC had said, in its September 26 release, that people receiving notices need not visit centres for hearings and that the BLOs would collect documents door-to-door.
• S. Chokalingam is the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Maharashtra, had written to the Election Commission of India (ECI) regarding four requested changes to the ECINet software and voter list revision processes.