One third of excluded voters in Ernakulam appear back in the final roll as SIR concludes

With election officials locking the final electoral roll at the end of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which ran for three and a half months, almost one-third of the voters excluded during the enumeration phase in the district appear to have found their way back onto the registry.

Though the actual figures will be released only on Saturday (February 20, 2026), sources, backed by the latest available data, suggest that over one lakh of the 3,22,422 voters excluded after enumeration have been added back to the list. They belonged to the category of absentees, deceased, and shifted (ASD).

While the draft electoral roll published on December 23, 2025, after the enumeration contained 23,30,643 voters, the fresh list, as of earlier this week when the revision was under way, had 24,62,641 voters. The fresh list includes voters who were part of the draft roll but had to undergo verification of their identity details, as well as those who applied afresh for inclusion in the electoral roll by submitting Form 6 (application for new voters) and Form 6A (application for voters residing in foreign countries).

Of the nearly 1.5 lakh voters added to the draft list, a little over 27,000 are fresh voters aged 18 or 19. A vast majority of the rest, nearly 1.25 lakh, could be those omitted from the draft list during the enumeration phase. Those who were found to have been included in the ASD list for the wrong reasons were allowed to file new applications till January 30.

“Of the 3,22,422 voters in the ASD list, a vast majority are deceased. Those who have shifted to other constituencies could have enrolled in their new locations, and chances are very high that many of the remaining voters made use of the opportunity to file fresh applications and had their franchise reinstated. All possible steps were taken to ensure that no eligible person was left out of the final list. Every single deletion was made after thorough verification,” a key district election official said.

The district’s ASD list also contained 41,823 people who, as per booth level officers’ entries, refused to either accept or return the signed enumeration forms, allegedly claiming they did not bother about their voting rights. “We guess many of them have had a rethink about their choice and applied afresh to be included in the electoral roll,” the official said.