‘Husband Husband’ to ‘????’ and ‘XXX’: After SIR, Bengaluru’s electoral rolls riddled with errors

Bengaluru’s final electoral rolls showing voters’ names and relatives’ details replaced by garbled characters, symbols and incorrect entries.

From names appearing as “XXX” or “??????K” to missing relatives’ names and entries containing single letters, email IDs or even “...”, entries in Bengaluru’s final electoral rolls are riddled with errors. The Hindu found discrepancies in at least 1,000 entries here alone.

In some polling parts, voters listed one after another (consecutive serial numbers) have had their names and their relatives’ names replaced by jumbled letters, making it impossible to identify them from the entries in the voter rolls.

The electors’ names and relatives’ names at serial numbers 4 to 7, 143 to 150, 152 to 157, 300 to 302, 306 to 313, 327 to 330, and 336 to 340 appeared as strings of unfamiliar characters.

In Dasarahalli Assembly constituency, part no. 324, which has 425 electors, an unusually large number of consecutive entries carry garbled names. The electors’ names and relatives’ names at serial numbers 4 to 7, 143 to 150, 152 to 157, 300 to 302, 306 to 313, 327 to 330, and 336 to 340 appeared as strings of unfamiliar characters.

Serial number 327, for example, listed the elector’s name as “µ¢µÌèÌ” and the relative’s name as “Ï¢µÈèÈ”. This combination was seen across all mentioned serial numbers.

Errors were also found in the names of relatives. This column was left blank or contained only a single letter in several entries in the final rolls. Others listed “NA”, “None”, while some had the relationship itself — such as “Husband”, “Wife” or “Mother”, entered in place of the relative’s name.

In Dasarahalli (polling part No. 7), an elector named Kavitha had her name split between English and Kannada even in the English version of the roll, while the relative’s name was listed as “Husband Husband”. In Chamarajpet, an elector, Abdul Salam, had “Wife” entered as the relative’s name. In Mahadevapura, some entries listed only a single letter, such as “S” or “B”, as the relative’s name.

There were also entries containing details that appeared to have no connection with the fields in which they were recorded, including dates and e-mail addresses.

In Yelahanka Assembly constituency, in polling part No. 332, an elector’s relative’s name was listed as “rakshithagowda1430@gmail.comgowda”. In another entry in the BBMP South district, the relative’s name appeared as “Syed Apsar KZW1566785”. A 50-year-old man’s name, meanwhile, was listed as “Channapa Gowda Patil 01/06/1974”, while a 44-year-old female was listed as “??????K”.

There were also entries containing details that appeared to have no connection with the fields in which they were recorded, including dates and e-mail addresses.

The Hindu contacted AEROs and BLO supervisors, who said they were unaware of the cases and would look into them.

A polling official, however, attributed the problem to an error during transliteration. The official said some fonts used special codes to display Kannada letters. “If the computer could not recognise the font used when the file was converted, the letters could appear as unrelated symbols,” he said.

BLOs, too, attributed the errors to software glitches. At least three BLOs said they had encountered similar problems and had informed their supervisors about them. “Only a few people reached out regarding this after the final rolls, and we have told them to fill Form 8 (seeking correction). We were aware of such errors as the software kept showing these glitches, but we were told that after the final upload, the system would fix them,” they said.

The Hindu also spoke to many such voters whose names or other details appeared incorrectly in the rolls to find out what information they had submitted. In most of the cases, the electors said they had provided the correct details. Some said they had noticed the errors but assumed they were temporary glitches, as the names were illegible. They said they realised that their details had appeared incorrectly only later, when they identified their entries by their house numbers.