As many as 20.03% of electors marked under the absent, shifted, duplicate, dead and others (ASDDO) category will be removed from the draft electoral roll, Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) V. Anbu Kumar said on Wednesday.

He added that voters wrongly marked as absent or shifted can have their names restored only by approaching their Booth Level Officer (BLO), proving that they reside at the same address and obtain an enumeration form before August 8, or later by submitting Form 6 along with a declaration form.

The CEO said that 34.17 lakh electors categorised under ‘unmapped entries’ will receive notices as they submitted enumeration forms without furnishing details from the 2002 electoral roll. “Moreover, those who have provided 2002 details, and if those details are wrong, it will result in mismatches; such people will also receive notices as the discrepancies will lead to mismatches during verification,” Mr. Kumar said.

“The ASDDO list has been made public. Anyone who has been wrongly marked as absent or shifted can get it corrected till August 8. After that, they can submit Form 6 along with a declaration form to get their names included in the electoral roll. Any such corrections will be reflected only in the final electoral roll,” Mr. Anbu Kumar said.

The Congress had recently requested the CEO not to delete voters included in the ASDDO list without a second round of verification. However, the CEO maintained that all electors marked under ASDDO would be removed from the draft roll, stating that the required field verification and mahazars had already been completed.

Responding to concerns that the four-day window available for voters wrongly marked as absent or shifted is too short and should be extended, Mr. Anbu Kumar said there was no need for an extension as the exercise had been carried out well before the deadline.

The deletions at the draft stage are expected to be particularly significant in Bengaluru. BBMP South has 51.57% of its electors under the ASDDO category — one in every two voters, while BBMP Central has recorded 48.33%.

Besides Bengaluru, districts including Kalaburagi, Dharwad, Yadgir, Ballari, Mysuru, Bidar, and Raichur have recorded more than 15% of their electors under the ASDDO category, as of August 5.

When asked about the unusually high proportion of ASDDO electors, the CEO said it was “not his job” to analyse the reasons behind the figures and that he “cannot have any opinion” on the matter.

Logical discrepancies

The CEO once again sidestepped questions on the “logical discrepancy” category, saying its final status would become clear only after the draft electoral roll is published. He maintained that the electoral roll is still being updated and that no conclusions can be drawn at this stage. When told that the BLO application is already flagging voters under the logical discrepancy category, Mr. Anbu Kumar reiterated that the data is still being updated and that the draft electoral roll, once published, would provide clarity on the final number and nature of the discrepancies.

Others category

While the SIR was introduced with the stated objective of identifying suspected foreign nationals and preparing “pure” electoral rolls, the CEO declined to comment on the matter, saying he had made no such statement. When asked whether the “others” category included any groups apart from those who refused to sign the enumeration forms and whether the data had been segregated, Mr. Anbu Kumar said no such classification had been carried out.

Published - August 05, 2026 08:58 pm IST