Karnataka SIR Final Electoral Roll Explained: 4.55 Crore Voters, 99.32 Lakh Fewer Names, and How to Check Yours
Key Takeaways
- Karnataka's final electoral roll, published on 27 October 2026, lists 4,55,00,011 voters — 99,32,303 fewer than the 5,54,32,314 voters before the SIR.
- The draft roll had removed 1,07,96,339 names, led by about 80.62 lakh voters marked as shifted or not found at their address.
- During the claims period, 10,08,038 new voters were added, but that restored only a fraction of the draft deletions.
- Voters whose names are missing can file Form 6, with late applications going into quarterly supplementary lists.
- The 'Others' deletion category and the count of ineligible voters identified remain incompletely explained in the published record.
Karnataka's electoral roll looks very different today from the one the state started the year with. After more than three months of house-to-house checking under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the state's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) published the final electoral roll on Tuesday, 27 October 2026. It lists 4,55,00,011 voters — 99,32,303 fewer than the 5,54,32,314 voters on the rolls when the revision began.
That is a fall of about 18 percent, or nearly one in five names. It is the single most important number in the final roll, and it deserves careful reading. A smaller roll does not automatically mean that nearly one crore people have lost their right to vote forever, and it does not automatically mean that the roll is now free of every error. The story is in the detail: who was removed, why, how many people applied to come back, and what a voter whose name is missing can still do.
What happened on 27 October
The final electoral roll for Karnataka was published on 27 October 2026, as scheduled by the Election Commission of India (ECI). Constituency-wise rolls are available on the website of the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, and voters can also check their enrolment through the Election Commission's electoral search portal.
The final figures, reported from the CEO's office and the final roll, are:
- Total electors: 4,55,00,011 (about 4.55 crore)
- Before the SIR: 5,54,32,314 (about 5.54 crore)
- Net reduction: 99,32,303 (about 99.32 lakh)
- Male voters: 2,25,40,493
- Female voters: 2,29,12,355
- Third-gender voters: 2,841
- Voters aged 18-19: more than 6.83 lakh
- Voters aged above 85: more than 3.92 lakh
The final roll is also 8.64 lakh names longer than the draft roll published in August. That recovery matters, but it is small compared with the scale of the original deletions. The central question of this revision — why the final list is still nearly one crore names shorter than the starting list — is answered, in part, by looking back at the draft stage and the claims period that followed it.
What is the SIR, and why was it done?
A Special Intensive Revision is a thorough, door-to-door re-check of the electoral roll. Booth-level officers visit households, verify entries, and prepare a fresh draft list. The stated objective of the Karnataka exercise, as described by election authorities, was to ensure that no eligible voter was left out and no ineligible voter remained on the rolls — in short, a clean and accurate electorate.
That is a bigger job than the routine, continuous updating of rolls, in which names are added, deleted or corrected as people turn 18, move house, or die. An intensive revision goes back to the beginning and tests every entry against enumeration on the ground. Supporters argue that this is the only way to catch large numbers of shifted, duplicate or dead entries that routine updating misses. Critics argue that the same process, done at speed and at scale, risks deleting genuine voters who were simply not found at home, who had moved within the state, or who could not complete a hearing in time.
Karnataka's numbers show both sides of that argument at work. A very large number of entries were removed, and only a fraction of them were restored during the claims process.
The draft roll: 1.07 crore names removed
The draft electoral roll, published on 24 August 2026, cut 1,07,96,339 names from the starting figure of 5,54,32,314. That left a draft electorate of about 4.46 crore voters.
The breakdown of the draft deletions, as reported from the revision data, was roughly:
- Shifted or not found at their address during enumeration: about 80.62 lakh — by far the largest category
- Recorded as dead: about 16.39 lakh
- Duplicate entries: more than 7 lakh
- "Others": about 3.83 lakh
The distinction between these categories is crucial, and it is where most of the public debate sits.
A voter recorded as dead or as a duplicate entry is, on the face of it, a clear correction: the same person should not appear twice, and a person who has died should not remain on the roll. A voter marked as "shifted" or "not found", however, is not necessarily ineligible to vote. Such a voter may have moved to another address, another constituency, or another state, and may still be a fully eligible Indian citizen aged 18 or above. What the SIR process required of such voters was, in effect, to re-establish themselves on the roll — in most cases by applying through Form 6 for inclusion.
The "Others" category has drawn particular scrutiny. It is not a category seen in the same form in every state that conducted an SIR, and the CEO's office has not clearly explained what it comprises, apart from stating that it includes people who refused to sign during the process. That lack of a full explanation leaves an open question about a category covering lakhs of names, and it is one of the points on which the final roll will continue to be questioned.
Another reported detail concerns Form 7, the form used to object to an inclusion or seek a deletion. Reports citing The Hindu noted 61,059 Form 7 applications filed in the names of electoral registration officers without a stated reason, with officials saying the system auto-generated them when voters could not be reached for hearings. That explanation, too, is part of the record that voters, parties and courts will test as the final roll is examined constituency by constituency.
The claims period: what came back, and what did not
Between the draft roll and the final roll came the claims and objections period, which ran from 24 August to 23 September 2026, with processing and disposal of applications continuing until 22 October. During that period, according to figures reported from the CEO's office:
- New voters added: 10,08,038 (about 10.08 lakh)
- Names deleted: 1,88,324 (about 1.88 lakh)
- Entries modified or corrected: 8,96,519 (about 8.96 lakh)
Of the 10.08 lakh additions, 8,77,104 came through Form 6 for inclusion, 2,312 through Form 6A for overseas electors, and 1,28,622 through Form 8 for shifting-related additions. Of the 1.88 lakh deletions in this period, 1,24,327 were voters identified as permanently shifted and 61,960 fell under the "Others" category, with smaller numbers recorded as deceased, duplicate or absentee.
Put together, those figures explain why the final roll is 8.64 lakh names longer than the draft roll but still 99.32 lakh names shorter than the starting roll. The claims process restored or added a significant number of names, but inclusion applications fell far short of the number of names struck off the draft roll, as The Hindu's analysis of the exercise pointed out before publication. In no constituency, that analysis found, did additions offset deletions.
That gap is the heart of the matter. If most of the 80.62 lakh "shifted or not found" voters were genuinely no longer resident at their old addresses, then a smaller roll may simply reflect a more accurate picture of where voters actually live — provided those voters can re-register where they now live. If, on the other hand, a substantial number of those voters were still eligible and simply missed the claims window, moved without knowing they had to re-apply, or could not complete a hearing, then the final roll may have excluded genuine voters who will only discover the problem when they go to vote.
The final roll itself cannot settle that question. Only constituency-level checking — comparing deletions with re-registrations, and testing individual cases — can show how much of the reduction is clean-up and how much is exclusion.
The scale of the exercise behind the numbers
The SIR in Karnataka was an enormous administrative operation, and its scale helps explain both its reach and its risks. According to a press note from the CEO's office issued on 23 October 2026:
- Notices generated and delivered: 43,82,824, with hearings on all of them completed before the final roll
- Total applications received between 16 June and 22 October 2026: 25,87,461
- Form 6 (new voter registration): 10,42,863
- Form 6A (overseas electors): 4,840
- Form 7 (objections to inclusion or deletion): 2,28,917
- Form 8 (corrections and changes of residence): 13,10,841
All Form 7 applications received up to 23 September, the last date for claims and objections, were cleared on a priority basis, the CEO's office said. The office also stressed that enrolment and correction of entries are continuous processes that do not end with the SIR — a point that matters greatly for anyone whose name is missing from the final roll.
The CEO's office has also announced an enrolment drive after the SIR, aimed at including eligible voters whose names were deleted during the exercise. That drive, and the quarterly supplementary lists described below, are the main routes back onto the roll for affected voters.
What this means for voters
For most voters, the practical consequence is simple: check your name now, not on polling day. A voter whose name is not on the final roll cannot vote until it is restored, however eligible they may be in principle.
To check, voters can use the Election Commission's electoral search portal: choose "Search by EPIC", enter the voter ID (EPIC) number, select Karnataka, complete the captcha, and search. Constituency-wise rolls are also available on the CEO Karnataka website. If the portal returns "No Result Found", that should not be taken as the final word on its own — voters should verify their details against the official electoral roll or contact the relevant election authorities, since a mismatch in spelling, address or EPIC details can also produce a negative result.
If a name is genuinely missing, the remedy is Form 6, filed online through voters.eci.gov.in or the ECINET app, or in person at the offices of the Booth Level Officer (BLO) or Electoral Registration Officer (ERO). The CEO's office has clarified that applications filed after 23 September, the deadline for claims and objections, will be considered for supplementary lists published quarterly after the SIR. In other words, a late application is not wasted — but it will not appear in the final roll published on 27 October, and voters should not assume they are on the roll until they have checked again after the supplementary list.
The same continuous process applies to corrections: a wrong name spelling, wrong address or wrong photograph can be corrected through Form 8, and objections to an entry can be raised through Form 7. Keeping the EPIC details and the current residential address in step is the simplest protection against being marked as "shifted" in a future revision.
What this means for elections in Karnataka
A roll that is nearly one crore names smaller changes the arithmetic of elections even before a single vote is cast. Turnout percentages, victory margins and the size of the electorate in each constituency will all be measured against the new, smaller base. Parties will study the final roll constituency by constituency, looking for places where deletions were concentrated and whether those deletions track with particular communities, age groups or areas.
That scrutiny is legitimate and expected. A revision on this scale will always be politically contested, and the Election Commission's defence of the SIR process is already before the Supreme Court in related proceedings. What should not be assumed, in either direction, is the motive or the effect in any individual case. The published figures show a very large reduction driven mainly by "shifted or not found" entries, a claims process that restored only a fraction of the deleted names, and several categories — above all "Others" — that have not been fully explained. They do not, on their own, prove that any particular voter was wrongly deleted, nor do they prove that every deletion was correct.
Two further facts remain unknown, and both were flagged in analysis of the exercise as it closed: the number of ineligible voters actually identified, and the number of foreign citizens found on the rolls — both stated aims of the revision. Until the CEO's office publishes that detail, the claim that the SIR removed large numbers of ineligible voters rests on the overall reduction figure rather than on a counted number of ineligible entries.
What to watch next
Three things will show whether the final roll holds up. First, the enrolment drive and the quarterly supplementary lists: if they add back large numbers of eligible voters in the coming months, the final reduction will shrink, and the story will become one of a difficult but correctable clean-up. Second, constituency-level analysis by parties, researchers and journalists, testing whether deletions were evenly spread or concentrated in particular areas. Third, the legal proceedings around the SIR, where the Election Commission is defending its orders and where the treatment of categories such as "Others" and auto-generated Form 7 applications may be examined in detail.
For the individual voter, however, the next step is not legal or statistical. It is personal and immediate: check the final roll, and if your name is not there, file Form 6 and keep the acknowledgement until your name appears in a supplementary list. The SIR is over, but enrolment is not.
Conclusion
Karnataka's final electoral roll, published on 27 October 2026, lists 4.55 crore voters — 99.32 lakh fewer than before the Special Intensive Revision began. The draft roll had removed 1.07 crore names, led by 80.62 lakh voters marked as shifted or not found, and the claims period added back only 10.08 lakh new voters. That arithmetic, more than any single claim about the exercise, is what voters should remember.
A cleaner roll is a genuine public good: duplicate, dead and long-shifted entries distort the electorate and waste administrative effort. But a roll is only as good as its ability to include every eligible voter, and on that test the Karnataka SIR leaves important questions open — about the "Others" category, about voters who could not be reached for hearings, and about how many of the shifted voters will successfully re-register where they now live. The final roll is therefore best read not as the end of the story, but as the start of the checking, correction and enrolment work that must follow it.