Untested software testing democracy

For the first time in the history of India's flawed yet universally acclaimed democratic process, crores of verified existing voters have been put at risk of systemic disfranchisement— ironically by the very body responsible for guaranteeing free and fair elections. And shockingly by untested software used to further “cleanse” a voter roll which has just been verified already!

- MAHUA MOITRA

When the Special Intensive Revision kicked off in West Bengal on November 1, there were 7.66 crore registered voters. After the house-to-house scrutiny concluded a month later, 58 lakh voters (roughly 7.6%) were deleted-marked as Absent, Shifted, Deceased or Duplicate. A further 32 lakh “unmapped” voters, who could not link either themselves or their parents/grandparents to the 2002 voter roll, were summoned for mandatory hearings.

That left a clean list of 6.75 crore voters who were verified and “mapped”. The Election Commission of India assured them that they needed no further scrutiny: all they had to do was to show up at their booth on polling day with their voter cards and they could vote.