Kerala SIR: large number of ASD entries in some polling booths spark concern

A surprisingly large number of entries in the Absent, Swiped, Dead (ASD) list at some polling booths in Kerala has raised concerns ahead of the official publication of the draft electoral rolls on December 23 under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR).

For example, a polling booth in Thiruvananthapuram Assembly constituency (northern part of East Building of Sree Pattom Thanu Pillai UPS Sreevaraham (No – 138)) has 704 entries in the ASD list. While 16 of these were the names of deceased voters, the vast majority (592) were listed as ‘Untraceable/N/A’. The creation date of the list is given as December 17.

Again, in Vattiyoorkavu constituency in Thiruvananthapuram district, there are 347 entries in the ASD list in booth number 154 (Kendriya Vidyalaya, Pattom (western part of the main building). Of these, the number of entries in the ‘EF Rejected’ category, where voters have probably refused to return their counting forms, is 116. Additionally, 102 voters are listed as ‘Untraceable/None.’ The date mentioned in the list is 11 December.

There are five categories on the ASD list: dead voters, untraceable/unlocated voters, permanently altered, copied names, and an ‘others’ category (EF Refused) which includes people who refuse to accept or return census forms. There are just over 24.08 lakh names in the ASD list currently online. This includes 6.45 lakh listed as ‘untraceable’ and 8.16 lakh classified as ‘permanently shifted’. While the ‘Others’ category has over 1.60 names, the number of deceased voters is over 6.49 lakh and duplicate names are 1.36 lakh.

Under the SIR process, counting forms have been issued to just over 2.78 crore voters in the electoral rolls as on October 27, 2025.

However, the unusual number of entries such as ‘EF Rejected’ and ‘Unable to Trace’ were objected to by political parties such as CPI(M), CPI, Congress and IUML. Blaming the Election Commission’s “undue haste” in progress on SIR, they demanded more time to trace these voters and include them in the voter rolls. Chief Electoral Officer (Kerala) Rathan U. Kelkar had published the ASD list online on the insistence of political parties even though the SIR draft was to be released only on December 21. According to the CEO, an updated version of the ASD list will be published alongside the draft.

Incidentally, this phenomenon is not limited to Thiruvananthapuram district but is also seen in urban places in Kerala. For example, at the UP School Amaravathy stall at Fort Kochi in Kochi Assembly constituency in Ernakulam district (northern end of central block) there are 302 names on the list; of these, 82 were categorized as ‘EF Rejected’ and 69 as ‘Untraceable’. The list of Zamorins HSS (West Building) booth in Kozhikode South constituency has a total of 112 names, of which 85 are listed as ‘Permanently replaced’.

At the polling booth at CM LP School Muttathu Kavu (Kizhakke building) in Thiruvalla Assembly constituency, there are 112 names in the ASD list, of which 70 are listed as ‘untraceable’.

Mr. Kelkar announced that registration in the voter list can be made after the publication of the voter lists and until the last day of filing nominations for the 2026 Assembly elections. On Saturday he reiterated that the EC’s task is to include all voters. Following the ‘Claims and Objections’ application period from December 23 to January 22 and the notification phase which will last until February 14, the final lists for Kerala will be published on February 21.