Punjab BLOs instructed to test voter lists for ‘absurd’ errors | Chandigarh Information – The Occasions of India

Patiala: Punjab chief electoral officer has issued directives to booth-level officers (BLOs) to hold out an intensive “purification” of electoral rolls, specializing in fast removing of non-human photos, blurred pictures, and “absurd” or “illogical” knowledge entries that beforehand led to public controversies.The CEO directed BLOs to establish and substitute “non-human” or inappropriate photos, together with any picture not belonging to the precise voter, after stories of “non-human” photos and viral claims of pets like canine and cats showing in voter lists throughout earlier revisions in states like Bihar. As a part of pre-SIR train, BLOs had been additionally instructed to deal with technical glitches corresponding to blurry, black-and-white, or lacking pictures, and proper logic errors, together with discrepancies in age-gender ratios, illogical addresses, or “gibberish” textual content in identify fields.

It has been mandated that any adjustments to the voter listing should be backed by bodily verification. Voters requiring a picture replace or correction of particulars corresponding to identify, age and deal with should fill out Kind 8. In circumstances the place a vote must be deleted attributable to loss of life, everlasting shifting, or duplication, BLOs are required to course of Kind 7 after verifying the information on the bottom.In Nabha and Sangrur, BLOs have already begun door-to-door visits to seize recent pictures and confirm paperwork. “The purpose is to make sure a 100% error-free electoral roll earlier than the upcoming electoral cycles,” stated a district official.This heightened vigilance stemmed from the Particular Intensive Revision (SIR) carried out in Bihar in 2025. That train, involving an enormous overhaul of the 2003-base lists, confronted intense scrutiny over the large-scale deletion of “untraceable” electors and viral social media posts displaying absurd entries. By issuing these pre-emptive directions, the ECI aimed to keep up institutional credibility and forestall “demographic manipulation” or “algorithmic errors” from affecting the ultimate rolls.