Can you vote if your voter ID card has spelling mistakes?

Has your name been spelled correctly on your Electoral Photo Identification Card (EPIC)? If there are errors, can you still vote in the April 23 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu? Read on to find out.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) says, clerical errors, spelling mistakes, etc., in the EPIC could be ignored “provided the identity of the elector can be established by the EPIC.”

Section 61 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, provides for preventing personation of electors, so as to make the right of genuine electors to vote, and the use of the EPIC for electors as the means of establishing their identity at the time of polling becomes significant. Rule 28 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, empowers the Election Commission to direct, with a view to preventing personation of electors and facilitating their identification at the time of poll, the issue of the EPIC to electors bearing their photographs at State cost.

Rules 49H (3) and 49K (2) (b) of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, stipulate that where the electors of a constituency have been supplied with EPIC under the said provisions of Rule 28 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, the electors shall produce their EPIC at the polling station, and failure or refusal on their part to produce those Electors Photo Identity Card may result in the denial of permission to vote.

It is clear that although the right to vote arises by the existence of the name in the electoral roll, it is also dependent upon the use of the EPIC, where provided by the Election Commission at State cost, as the means of establishing their identity at the time of polling and that both are to be used together. According to the ECI, the EPIC has been issued to “approximate 100% electors” in the poll-bound States including Tamil Nadu (April 23) and the Union Territory of Puducherry (April 9).