Photo Courtesy: India Today Group
Shillong: Meghalaya election authorities have flagged 651,644 voters for immediate audit. The review follows the August 5 release of draft electoral rolls for all 60 Assembly constituencies. Of these cases, 222,786 voters lack mapping data, while 428,858 records show inconsistencies with past files. Chief Electoral Officer issued these findings after an August 11 meeting with district officials and political party representatives.
Technical errors spotted via ECINET include mismatched names, suspicious parent-child age gaps, and improbable sibling birth dates. Staff must now serve notices to affected residents. Those hit by these notices can show up before local registration officers with proof of identity. The department promised thorough oversight. The CEO confirmed that no name would be stripped from the roll without due process, emphasizing that every individual must be provided a “fair and reasonable opportunity” to respond before any decision stands.
The clock is ticking. Citizens have until September 4 to submit claims or objections. Appeals against removal go to the District Magistrate within 15 days, with a secondary appeal to the CEO possible within 30 days. To date, officials have processed 2,449 new applications including 1,121 requests for new registrations and over 1,300 correction or transfer forms. Political parties have deployed 1,733 booth agents to help voters navigate the paperwork. Officials will finalize the roll on October 7.
Updated at 12th August 2026 at 10:01am
The audit net cast by ECINET is wider than previously noted. Beyond basic mismatches, software flags include cases where more than six children share a parent, and instances where the age difference between an elector and their grandparent is less than 40 years. Officials also identified eight Form 7 applications for deletion, 253 requests for residence shifts, and 1,067 other Form 8 correction filings.
While the September 4 deadline holds for citizen submissions, the bureaucratic grind continues long after. EROs and AEROs have until October 3 to conduct hearings and dispose of all claims. To keep the process transparent, authorities uploaded lists of Absent, Shifted, Dead, and Duplicate electors to department websites. CEO B.D.R. Tiwari confirmed the entire operation runs under the strict guidelines of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
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