Two booth-level officers, a man and a woman, sit at a community hall tucked away to a corner at a locality in Hayathnagar. The woman is busy on phone, pulling out papers from the bundles strewn before her, and calling the contact numbers written prominently on them.

“You have received a notice in your name. Please come and collect it,” she tells an elector who is expecting her to deliver the notice at his doorstep. “We cannot go from door to door. I have notices pertaining to the electors in the radius of three to four kilometres,” she says in explanation. A few electors arrive meanwhile, holding their Electoral Photo Identity Cards and the Enumeration Form copies that they had filled out last month. The BLO asks them to sit, saying “This could take a while.”

A bundle is given to the elector for him to search for and pull out the notices in his and his family members’ names. The BLO then tears the counterfoil, and makes the electors sign on it along with their mobile numbers, before handing them the notices. She takes a selfie with the electors holding the copies, and uploads it on the Election Commission of India’s mobile app. The electors are also made to sign a register in proof of receiving notices.

Then they are orally informed about the location of the hearing, which is at the ward office of the locality. Members of the same family got several different dates in all cases, and the location of the hearing is not mentioned on the notice copies.

“Please bring any of the 12 documents mentioned overleaf in the coming two days. We will upload them too, so that you can just attend the group hearing on the given date,” the male BLO tells the electors.

Group hearings are the workaround devised by the electoral officials in the city, in order to reduce crowds at the office of the Electoral Registration Officers, and to economise on time during the notice period of the Special Intensive Revision of the Electoral Rolls presently going on in the State. Officials of the rank of Assistant Electoral Registration Officers are said to chair the hearings at community halls/ward offices or any other centrally accessible locations where the electors will have to attend. A group photo will be taken as the proof of conducting the hearing, so even electors who had already given the documentary proof to the BLO will have to mark their attendance at the hearing.

Getting maximum extent of the job done by BLOs is being considered an efficient way to use the limited time and resources. However, BLOs are not happy about it. “It’s a lot of work. We are doing this in the morning, and returning to our regular jobs towards evening,” says a BLO who is a health worker.

While they were distributing forms of only one polling station during Enumeration Phase, it is not the same now. “Each BLO has to hand over 1,000 notices. If the notices in her area are fewer, then she is being given the notices of other polling stations too, which makes the door-to-door visits difficult. Hence, the BLOs are calling the electors to come and collect the notices, which makes their job easier,” informed an official pleading anonymity.

Notices are being issued to a total 92,87,577 electors across the State, of whom 34,47,342 are from the constituencies part of the city. “I felt sorry for the BLO. For each form, there are two to three signatures he/she has to take besides a photograph which they have to upload. The whole process is 15 to 20 minutes for each form — after locating the notice in his pile. I had to sit with him and browse through the notices which are not in any order,” said Ram Manohar Reddy, well-known economist and journalist who stays at Adarsh Nagar.

Close to 67%, or 97.4 lakh, enumeration forms distributed to Delhi’s 1.45 crore electors under the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls have been digitised as of Monday, the last day of the enumeration phase, according to official data. The names of these voters will appear on the draft roll scheduled to be published on August 24.

The remaining 47.7 lakh voters, marked “uncollectable” and placed under the Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate and Others (ASDDO) categories, will not appear in the draft roll.

They face the risk of being excluded from the final electoral roll that is scheduled to be published on October 27.

The SIR deadline was extended twice in July after Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ashok Kumar sought additional time, citing “slow progress of the enumeration process”.

“By midnight, Booth Level Officers will lose access to the BLO app and will be unable to make changes,” a senior official said.

The official added that the possible deletion of 33% voters was “expected” due to the high migrant population in the Capital.

“We were expecting 20-30% deletion. The majority of the voters whose filled forms were not returned to the BLOs are marked as shifted,” the official said.

A separate list of those in the ASDDO categories is likely to be published. They will be allowed to file claims and objections in the next phase from August 24 to September 23.

Voter verification

Of the voters who have returned the forms, 34% (or over 33 lakh) will have to produce one of the 12 documents listed by the Election Commission to verify their details during the month-long notice period that will follow the claims and objections phase.

These include 13 lakh voters who could not map themselves or their relatives to the previous SIR roll. The figure also includes over 19 lakh voters flagged for ‘anomalies’.

In cases such as a homeless person who might not have these documents, the Electoral Registration Officer is authorised to decide on eligibility, the poll official said.

Though a list of anomalies or discrepancies has not been published by the CEO’s office, a source said election officials have found four kinds of anomalies — multiple children linked to the same parent; an age gap of under 15 years between parent and child; mismatched names between rolls; and differences in surnames.

An AI-based system is being used to flag logical discrepancies, the source said, adding that the highest number of anomalies were flagged in north-east Delhi (3 lakh or 70% of the received forms).

A week before the deadline of August 3, over 25% of the enumeration forms distributed as part of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of Electoral Rolls (SIR) in the Hyderabad district are yet to be filled and returned.

Of the total enumeration forms printed, only 53.33% have been digitised as per the data released by the District Election Officer and GHMC Commissioner R.V.Karnan, who urged the voters to return the filled in forms forthwith, as August 3 is the deadline for digitisation too.

While the authorities are claiming 100% distribution, Mr. Karnan admitted that 10% of the enumeration forms are still left with the Booth Level Officers as nobody collected them. Though as per the procedure determined by the Election Commission of India, the BLOs were to pay house-to-house visits, it has not happened everywhere with uniformity. Several BLOs distributed and received the forms from a central location in the colonies.

In case of no claimants, the left over forms will be added to the Absent, Shifted, Dead (ASD) list, Mr. Karnan said, while addressing a press meet on Tuesday.

As things stand now, of the total 47,36,669 forms printed for the 15 constituencies of the district, only 25,26,014 forms have been returned, clocking 53.33% digitisation. A total 4,79,405 (10.12%) voters have been added to ASD list. Even added with the undistributed forms, the total forms accounted for are less than 75%.

Mr. Karnan said the BLOs are not getting any more forms back and attributed the remaining to duplicate or shifted voters.

“Some voters having another vote elsewhere might have made a choice to retain that, and forgo here. BLOs left the forms outside even where the doors were locked. Those forms might not have been returned,” he said, explaining possible scenarios.

Malakpet recorded the lowest digitisation at 49.7%, followed by Musheerabad at 50.12%. The highest digitisation was only 58.74% recorded in Bahadurpura constituency. On the whole, at total 4,81,744 voters have filled in the enumeration form online.

Mr. Karnan said the electoral list will not be linked with the welfare schemes, and asked people not to fall for false propaganda. August 3 is also the closing date for rationalisation of polling stations so that no single polling station has more than 1,000 voters, he said, and added that Karwan, Chandrayangutta and Bahadurpura have more than 1,200 voters per polling station.

August 10 is the date for draft electoral roll publication, after which notices will be issued to the voters with anomalies in forms, and claims and objections will be accepted from electors, which will all be disposed of before October 8. Final electoral rolls will be published on October 12.