The Election Commission responded yesterday to the Indian Express investigation by saying "differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution," and that all decisions in the past year were taken unanimously. That statement does not answer a single specific fact the report raised.
The press release does not explain why Commissioner Sandhu recorded in writing that the Form 6 change was "unauthorised and illegal" and demanded its immediate removal, a word the Commission's own press note quietly softens into "suggestions for improving electoral processes." It does not explain why control of ERONet, the software holding every constituency's roll, was pulled toward a single Director General in Delhi, against the objections of two of three Commissioners. General reassurance is not a rebuttal.
Today's follow-up from the Indian Express shows exactly what that centralisation costs a real person. In Goa, the state's own Chief Electoral Officer wrote to the ECI in Delhi eight times in seven days, February 17 to 24, attaching a list of 97 voters whom Goa's own Electoral Registration Officers had personally heard, examined and found eligible for inclusion. Every request came back unanswered. The rollback function needed to reinstate them on ECINet simply was not enabled for Goa before the final roll published. As of September 20, all 97 are still missing from the rolls, despite the Commission's own state officials confirming they should have been included.
For a Goan, being off that roll does not just mean losing a vote. The state's health support scheme, covering things like dialysis and transplants, is open only to registered voters.
Ninety seven people may not matter to a democracy of 900 million voters in the aggregate. But every one of them is a name the system itself agreed should be there, kept out anyway by software controls the two dissenting commissioners had already flagged for exactly this failure. A press release calling that a "normal part of deliberation" is not exactly the answer that is needed.