ECI Resolves 20-Year Legacy of Duplicate EPIC Numbers

The Election Commission of India has tackled a 20-year issue with similar EPIC numbers assigned due to decentralization. After a comprehensive review, the issue was addressed by reallocating new EPIC numbers to electors where necessary. The resolution ensures the integrity of India's electoral rolls remains intact.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has successfully addressed a longstanding issue that has persisted for nearly two decades — the duplication of Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC) numbers. The problem emerged from a decentralized system where similar alphanumeric series were inadvertently assigned to genuine voters by different Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) since 2005.

In an exhaustive effort to sanitize the electoral database, the Chief Electoral Officers of all 36 states and UTs, along with EROs across 4,123 Assembly constituencies, scrutinized the records of over 99 crore electors across the nation. With an average of about 1,000 voters per polling station, the number of similar EPIC numbers was small, averaging just one in four stations.

Field verifications confirmed that these cases involved genuine voters spread across different constituencies and polling centers. All affected voters have now received new EPICs with unique numbers. The problem had its roots in the varied alphanumeric series used post-2005 and the changes following the 2008 constituency delimitations. The integrity of elections remains untainted, as duplicate EPICs didn't allow additional votes at other stations. (ANI)