Being registered twice is not a spare vote. It is an irregularity that can cost you both entries, and it is usually an honest mistake made by someone who moved and registered afresh instead of transferring.
How it happens
The common route is filing Form 6 after moving city. Form 6 is for first-time inclusion, and its declaration says so. The correct form for a move is Form 8, shifting of residence, which moves the existing entry rather than creating a second one.
Duplicates also survive from old rolls, from marriage and a change of name, and from revisions where a household was recorded twice.
Why it matters
Voting more than once at the same election is an offence. Simply being registered twice is not the same thing, but it is not permitted and it is what enables the offence, which is why the Commission works to remove duplicates.
The practical risk to you is the one people overlook: when a duplicate is found, an officer may delete the wrong one. If the entry removed is the one where you actually live, you discover it at the booth.
How to check
Search the roll by EPIC number for each card you hold, and search by name in both the place you live now and the place you lived before. Transliteration means a name search can miss an entry that is present, so search loosely. See checking your name on the electoral roll.
Two different EPIC numbers returning valid entries means two registrations.
How to fix it
- Decide which entry is correct. It should be where you are ordinarily resident, meaning where you actually live.
- File Form 7 to delete the other one, ticking the ground that you are already enrolled at another place. See removing a name from the roll.
- Keep the reference number and confirm afterwards that the right entry survived.
If the entry you want to keep is in the wrong place, file Form 8 to shift it rather than deleting and re-registering. Shifting preserves your EPIC number; re-registering does not.
Timing
After an election is announced, no deletion is made at all, and after final publication there is no suo-moto deletion in an election year. Sort this during a revision, not during a campaign.
If you are told you have a duplicate
Officers sometimes flag a suspected duplicate that is not one. Two people with the same name, the same father’s name and similar ages in one constituency is not rare in India, and a match on those fields is not proof.
If your entry is proposed for deletion on that basis, you are entitled to be heard before it is removed. Respond to the notice, produce your identity document, and if the entry is deleted anyway, appeal: to the District Election Officer during a revision, or to the District Magistrate during continuous updation.
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