How to Remove a Name From the Electoral Roll

Names come off the electoral roll through Form 7, the application for objecting to an inclusion or seeking a deletion. It covers three different situations, and the one you need decides what proof to attach.

The three uses

• Deleting your own entry, usually because you have registered somewhere else and want the old entry removed.
• Reporting an entry that should go, most often after a death in the family, or where someone has permanently moved away.
• Objecting to a proposed inclusion during a roll revision, in the constituency where you are yourself registered.

You tick one option and one ground. The usual grounds are death, under age, absent or permanently shifted, and already enrolled at the same place.

Who may object

Not anyone. An objection to someone else’s entry can be made by a person who is themselves registered in that constituency, and it must go to the Electoral Registration Officer with relevant proof.

This is a safeguard rather than a formality. An objection without evidence is not a basis for removing a voter, and the officer is required to be satisfied before acting.

Protections against wrongful deletion

The rules are deliberately tight, because a deletion silently disenfranchises someone who may not discover it until polling day.

• After final publication of the roll, there is no suo-moto deletion in an election year. A removal must rest on a Form 7, or on the elector’s own request.
• Once an election is announced, no deletion or correction is made at all. Forms received up to the announcement date are taken up; later ones wait.

This cuts both ways. It protects you from being removed mid-campaign, and it means a genuine deletion request filed late will not take effect for that election.

If your name was wrongly removed

First confirm it, by searching the roll with your EPIC number rather than your name, since transliteration defeats name searches on entries that are present.

If it is genuinely gone, you can appeal. During a revision the appeal lies to the District Election Officer. During continuous updation it lies to the District Magistrate or an Additional District or Executive Magistrate.

You can also simply re-register with Form 6, though an appeal is the right route where the deletion itself was improper.

How to file

Online at voters.eci.gov.in under Form 7, or on paper through your Booth Level Officer. Keep the reference number and check the outcome; a filed form is not the same as an approved one.

Online Form 7 is signed by whoever files it, with an Aadhaar e-sign: a one-time password goes to the mobile number linked to your Aadhaar. The portal says using the e-sign is optional, and that if you do not use it you can hand in the paper form instead. That is the way to apply if you have no Aadhaar number, no mobile number linked to it, or a name that differs from the name on your Aadhaar: the portal says to hand a signed paper form to the Electoral Registration Officer’s office or your Booth Level Officer.

Correction, 24 September 2026: This article previously did not say that online applications on Form 7 are signed with an Aadhaar e-sign. We have added that, and that anyone who cannot use it can apply on paper.

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