Karnataka final roll lists 99.32 lakh fewer voters after SIR

Karnataka published its final electoral roll on October 27, listing 4,55,00,011 voters after a Special Intensive Revision that reduced the electorate by 99.32 lakh from the 5,54,32,314 recorded before the exercise began, according to the Chief Electoral Officer’s office. The final total is about 17.92% below the pre-revision figure. It includes 2,25,40,493 male voters, 2,29,12,355 female voters and 2,841 third-gender voters. The roll also lists more than 6.83 lakh voters aged 18 to 19 and more than 3.92 lakh aged 85 or older. The draft roll, published in August, contained about 4.46 crore electors. The final version has a net 8.64 lakh more names than that draft, following the claims, objections and verification process. Despite those additions, the final electorate remains nearly one crore smaller than before the revision. At the draft stage, more than 1.07 crore names had been removed from the earlier roll. The Chief Electoral Officer’s data attributed deletions to categories including voters marked dead, duplicate entries, people who had shifted and people not found at their addresses. The News Minute reported that 80.62 lakh names were classified as shifted or not found;...