Voter Confusion in Maharashtra Civic Polls as Electoral Rolls Show Mismatches
Voters across Maharashtra experienced significant confusion during the recent municipal elections. Many people found their names missing from electoral rolls or discovered changes to their assigned polling stations. This situation created frustration and delays at voting centers throughout the state.
Minister Faces Voting Difficulties
State Forest Minister Ganesh Naik encountered problems when trying to cast his vote in Navi Mumbai. He could not find his name on the initial voters' list and had to move between different polling stations before finally being able to vote. "If a minister like me can face a situation where his name is missing from the voters' list, then one can imagine what might be happening to common voters," Naik commented after the experience.
Widespread Issues Across Mumbai
Similar problems affected voters in multiple areas of Mumbai. In Lalbaug, Sangeeta Shetty discovered her name appeared under a different serial number than what showed online. She only located her voting information after checking the Booth Level Officer's physical list.
Dharavi resident Aiman Khan reported that the polling station shown online did not match the physical list at the location. "According to the online portal, my polling station is 109 at Morning Star school. However, when we reached here, I was told that my name had not appeared on the physical list at the polling station," Khan explained. She received directions to go to a different polling center at Chhatrapati school instead.
Family Voting Complications
Vijay Jadhav from Kumbharwada faced a similar issue when his assigned polling booth turned out to be nearly half an hour away in the Kala Killa area. Upon arrival, officials informed him he could not vote because his name did not appear on their physical list.
Mayur Prajapati, who recently moved from Dahisar to Borivali and updated his voter ID, could not find his name despite the online system showing a Borivali voting center. "Even for today, a voting centre in Borivali was shown in my name online. But when I went to the centre, they could not find my name," he said. His brother found his own name listed in Dahisar based on an old voter ID, but Prajapati remained unable to locate his registration.
Technical Problems and System Issues
Election officials noted that confusion increased because many voters used the Election Commission of India website instead of the Maharashtra State Election Commission website. The state website contains booth-level details specifically for local polls. Unfortunately, the SEC website remained inaccessible for much of election day, compounding the problems.
Several long-time voters discovered their names missing from booths where they had voted for years. Amitabh Guha of Dahisar could not locate his name at his usual center despite having voted there previously using the same voter ID card. "But my voting card is on the old address and I have voted for Loksabha and Vidhansabha elections on the same ID," he expressed with frustration.
Systematic Problems Identified
Citizen activist Suresh Lad highlighted what he called widespread issues with the electoral system. "The list that is provided is not updated online. Additionally, the localities are not sorted like before, making it difficult to locate polling booth for voters," Lad explained. He noted that with many housing societies undergoing redevelopment, voters arrived at polling booths where they had voted in previous elections only to discover their names excluded from that center's current list.
In some particularly confusing cases, members of the same family received assignments to different polling booths. Ali Nawaz described how his family had to move from one polling center to another to ensure everyone could cast their votes.
The voting day revealed significant discrepancies between online electoral information and physical voting lists. These mismatches created substantial inconvenience for voters trying to exercise their democratic rights in the municipal elections.
