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Voter list ‘errors’: Several of EC’s ‘fact checks’ make no sense, mislead people further – Alt News

    The working of the Election Commission (EC) has come under intense scrutiny in recent times with the Opposition scaling up its protest against the electoral roll revision exercise in Bihar and Rahul Gandhi holding a press conference exposing many alleged irregularities, particularly in the voter list of Mahadevpura assembly seat in Karnataka. 

    When Alt News studied the EC’s official responses to the allegations of irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar, a pattern emerged, which showed how on several occasions, the poll panel made misleading points, dished out convoluted statements and gave incomplete explanations, and passed them of as ‘fact checks’. These so-called ‘fact-checks’ often lacked actual facts, leading to further confusion and distrust among people.

    Case I

    News outlet Scroll reported on August 9 that the Election Commission had replaced the digital draft voter list of the SIR conducted in Bihar with its scanned copy, which makes it difficult to spot errors, as the scanned copy of the PDF does not support the search function, which was available in the earlier, digitally readable version.

    Responding to this, EC put out a ‘fact-check’ in which it said that there had been no change in the draft electoral roll published on August 1, 2025. Changes will be made in it after the settlement of claims and objections by the concerned electoral registration officer.

    In this statement, the Election Commission ‘fact-checked’ something that was not claimed in the Scroll report. The report by Scroll nowhere mentioned that there was any change in the draft electoral roll data of the Bihar SIR, rather, it presented the fact that the original PDFs have been replaced with scanned copies of those PDFs. And the search function does not work in the scanned copies of PDFs. Hence, the so-called fact check by the Commission is misleading and appears to be motivated by the purpose of confusing people and stopping reporters and political parties from analyzing the data.

    The Election Commission’s tweet also received community notes, which is a form of public feedback and fact check in which people add context to the claims made in the tweet and verify the claims with sources. 

    Case II

    A report by journalist Ajit Anjum published in July and shared by several Opposition leaders showed that booth-level officers (BLOs) in the Phulwari assembly constituency of Patna were forging the signatures of voters during the SIR exercise in Bihar. On this, the Patna administration responded on behalf of the Election Commission and claimed in a ‘fact check’ that in Anjum’s video, BLOs were verifying the names of dead/shifted voters by writing ‘dead’ or ‘shifted’ and putting in their own signatures.

    Alt News‘ investigation found that the BLOs were not signing their own signatures but were forging the names of voters. After this fact came to light, the administration later claimed that the BLOs were marking dead persons in those forms and writing their names in place of signatures. Here too, the administration tried to play with words, because writing a person’s name in place of his signature in a form is considered a signature, but the administration deliberately used the word ‘writing the name’.

    Not only that, the administration’s alleged ‘fact check’ also raised a legal question: If someone else writes a person’s name in place of his signature in an official document, it can be considered forgery as per Indian law.

    After the first claim was proven dubious, the Patna district administration issued a new statement. In the second response, it claimed that the BLO had verified that both of the concerned individuals were dead by writing ‘Death’ on their forms and putting their names (the deceased person’s) in the signature column.

    The change in statement further accentuated suspicions of inconsistency.

    Further, the administration also claimed in the so-called fact check that all the BLOs seen in the journalist Ajit Anjum’s video report were preparing lists of deceased/shifted voters. However, Alt News confirmed that one of the persons, whose name could be spotted was alive and had not even shifted.

    The entire voter list revision exercise in Bihar was extensive and complex, involving door-to-door verification of voters’ details by BLOs and removal of names of dead, duplicate and shifted voters. During this entire process, many irregularities came to light. This process, which was completed in just one month, exposed the intense pressure on officials to finish the task and lack of training at all levels. As a result, allegations of serious irregularities like forged signatures, uploading forms of dead voters, BLOs not visiting the areas, uploading forms of voters without their information, etc, came up recurringly. After the Election Commission released the SIR draft roll on August 1, people’s concerns came to the fore even more. Inconsistencies like the name of a voter being present multiple times , the name of a dead voter being included in the draft roll, the name of a living person being removed etc came to light. 

    Case III

    During a press conference on August 7, 2025, Leader of Opposition and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi presented some documents claiming that the names of voters Aditya Srivastava (EPIC number FPP6437040) and Vishal Singh (EPIC number INB2722288) were present in the voter lists of several states (Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh). He presented screenshots taken from the EC website on March 16, 2025, claiming duplicate registrations and fraud in the electoral rolls.

    Reacting to this, the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Uttar Pradesh in a public statement on August 7, 2025, denied Gandhi’s claims, saying that when he searched the details of Aditya Shrivastava and Vishal Singh on the EC website, he had found these names only in the Karnataka list and not in the Lucknow East or Varanasi Cantt constituencies of Uttar Pradesh.

    Alt News verified both the relevant Draft Roll 2025 (published on October 29, 2024) and the Final Roll 2025 (published on January 7, 2025) of Lucknow East and Varanasi Cantt by downloading them from the Election Commission website to verify Rahul Gandhi’s allegations and the statement of the Uttar Pradesh CEO.

    Contrary to the claim of the CEO, Alt News found the names of both Aditya Srivastava and Vishal Singh listed in the UP voter roll for 2025, with their EPIC numbers matching the screenshot shared by Rahul Gandhi.

    Apart from this, many other discrepancies were also found in the statement of the Election Commission. For example, the EC claimed in its statement that the name of Aditya Srivastava, son of S P Srivastava, (EPIC number FPP6437040) was present at serial number 1265 in the voter list of booth number 458 of assembly constituency 174 Mahadevpura of Bengaluru Urban. Whereas in reality, the name of Aditya Srivastava’s relative mentioned there is not S P Srivastava, but Ritika Srivastava.

    Not only this, the Election Commission also claimed in the statement that the name of Aditya Srivastava, son of S P Srivastava, was not on the voter list of Lucknow East legislative assembly of Uttar Pradesh. Alt News investigated and found that in the Final Roll 2025, the name of Aditya Srivastava, son of S P Srivastava, was very much present in the voter list of Lucknow East. In fact, his entire details (father’s name, polling booth, serial number, age) match the screenshot shared by Rahul Gandhi, but now his EPIC number has changed.

    Case IV

    Opposition party leader and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on August 7 made serious allegations of vote theft and fraud against the Election Commission in a press conference showing irregularities in the voter list. Rahul Gandhi posted the entire video of this press conference on X (Twitter).

    Reacting to Rahul Gandhi’s tweet, the Election Commission put out a purported fact check in which it wrote that if Rahul Gandhi believed that what he was saying was true, he should sign a declaration/affidavit as per Rule 20(3)(b) of the Registration of Voters Rules, 1960, and submit the same to the Karnataka CEO so that necessary action can be initiated. If Rahul Gandhi did not believe what he was saying, he should stop drawing absurd conclusions and mislead the citizens of India. They called this statement a fact check. 

    While the appropriateness of the response may be a matter of debate, one thing is for sure — this was not a fact check by any stretch of imagination. One might argue that claiming to ‘fact-check’ serious allegations by the Leader of Opposition and then putting put such a statement is sure to reduce people’s trust in the independent institution.

    Case V

    On August 10, the Congress party wrote on X that Rahul Gandhi had exposed the modus operandi and tactics of ‘vote theft’ and the Election Commission had been found complicit in it. Sharing a list, Congress said that the list contained more than 30,000 illegal addresses — mostly “House number 0”, “00”, “000”, “-” and “#”, while most of the remaining 9,000 illegal addresses were just names of areas.

    Responding to this X post, the Election Commission conducted a so-called fact check in which they issued a statement saying that Rahul Gandhi was trying to avoid a process established by law and was trying to mislead citizens. If he really believes in the list he is sharing, he should have no problem in following the legal process and responding to the CEO of Karnataka without waiting any further. Therefore, Rahul Gandhi has two options:

    a) If Rahul Gandhi believes in his analysis and believes that his allegations against the election staff are correct, he should have no problem in submitting claims and objections against specific voters and signing the declaration/affidavit as per Rule 20(3)(b) of the Registration of Voters Rules, 1960.

    b) If Rahul Gandhi does not sign the declaration, it will mean that he does not believe in his analysis and conclusions and he is making baseless allegations. In such a case, he should apologize to the country.

    Once again, the reader would agree that calling this statement a fact check is bizarre and nonsensical.

    Fact-checking is an intensive process that involves verifying claims made publicly. It requires evaluating clear claims based on solid, irrefutable evidence, uninfluenced by bias or personal interest. A proper fact check provides verifiable facts and figures to examine specific claims and presents the findings transparently. But the Election Commission’s recent actions seem to be contrary to these principles. By passing off opinions, statements and incomplete information as fact checks, the Election Commission not only undermined its own credibility but also harmed whatever is left of its reputation as an autonomous constitutional institution. 

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