The electoral roll is not a fixed list. It is revised, and the revision has a published timetable with a window in which anyone can challenge what is on it. Knowing that timetable is the difference between fixing a problem and discovering it on polling day.
The cycle
- Draft roll published. The working list, made available at the Electoral Registration Officer’s office, with Booth Level Officers, and on the state Chief Electoral Officer’s website.
- Claims and objections period. A defined window, commonly around a month, in which anyone may apply to be added, corrected or removed, or object to someone else’s entry.
- Disposal. The officer decides each application, with field verification where needed.
- Final publication. The roll comes into force and is used for any election called against it, with later changes added as supplements.
Alongside this annual cycle, continuous updation runs year-round: you can file Form 6, 7 or 8 at any time, not only during a revision.
Which form for what
- Form 6: adding a name for the first time. See applying for a voter ID.
- Form 7: objecting to an inclusion, or seeking a deletion. See removing a name from the roll.
- Form 8: shifting residence, correcting entries, replacing an EPIC, or PwD marking.
- Forms 18 and 19: graduates and teachers enrolling for a Legislative Council constituency, in states that have one.
Intensive revisions
Periodically the Commission orders a more thorough exercise than the annual update, with house-to-house verification rather than only acting on applications received. The current one, the Special Intensive Revision, began in Bihar in June 2025 and has since been extended in phases to every state and Union territory except Assam, which had a separate special revision, and Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, where the Commission has said it will announce dates later.
In it, a pre-filled enumeration form is delivered for every elector on the roll, to be filled in and returned, and anyone whose form is not returned is left off the draft roll. New applicants add a Declaration Form to Form 6, as do people moving in from another state on Form 8. It asks whether the applicant, a parent or a grandparent was on the roll of the state’s last intensive revision; where no link can be made, the Electoral Registration Officer asks for documents showing date or place of birth. See applying for a voter ID.
In May 2026 the Supreme Court upheld the revision in Bihar, including its list of documents. It also held that the Commission may inquire into citizenship only to decide who belongs on the roll, and that where it is not satisfied it must refer the case to the authority that decides citizenship under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
If a revision is running where you live, return your enumeration form, check the draft roll for your own entry, and if you have been left off, apply on Form 6 with the Declaration Form during the claims and objections period. A decision to delete a name can be appealed to the District Magistrate and then to the Chief Electoral Officer under Section 24 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.
Why the window matters
Announcing an election does not close the roll. New voters can still be added until the last date for nominations, when Section 23(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 freezes the roll until the election is over, so apply well before that date to leave time for checks. Deletions and corrections stop sooner: the Election Commission has told Electoral Registration Officers not to make them on forms received after the announcement, or at all from ten days after it, unless it approves. Forms that arrive too late are dealt with after the election. Nothing can be fixed at the booth.
So the practical rule is simple: check during the claims and objections period, not when the campaign starts.
How to check
Search the roll by EPIC number, and download your polling station’s roll from voters.eci.gov.in if you want to see the full list for your part. Your Booth Level Officer can also check it for you.
How to read the draft roll
The roll is published as a separate list for each polling station, called a part. Within a part, every elector has a serial number. Your part number and serial number together are what polling staff actually use to find you, and quoting them turns a slow search through a printed list into a few seconds.
Each entry shows name, relative’s name and relationship, house number, age and gender. What it does not show is your full address or any identification number, which is deliberate: the roll is a public document.
Read your own entry carefully during the draft stage rather than assuming it is right. A wrong age or a mangled transliteration is easy to correct in the claims window and cannot be corrected once the roll is frozen for an election.
Correction, 24 September 2026: This article previously said the roll is effectively closed once an election is announced, and that later applications wait for the next cycle. In fact new voters can be added until the last date for nominations; only deletions and corrections stop earlier. We have corrected that section and the description of final publication. This article also did not describe the Special Intensive Revision under way since June 2025. We have added what it involves, where it applies and what the Supreme Court decided in May 2026.
Find your constituency, current representative and past results →India वोट Kar Editorial Team
Published 23 August 2026 · Last updated 24 September 2026
