Voter ID cards may soon be linked to Aadhaar cards in the country for which the Election Commission will hold a meeting with the Union Home Secretary, Secretary of the Legislative Department and the CEO of UIDAI on March 18. This discussion on the long-standing issue of linking voter IDs to Aadhaar cards would be taking place at a time when there is a political debate on this, especially after the Trinamool Congress raised concerns over duplicate entries in voter IDs in West Bengal. The Election Commission has announced a plan to remove duplicate voter entries in the next three months.

It may be recalled that in December 2021, the Lok Sabha passed the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, which recommended linking voter ID with Aadhaar. According to the Election Commission, so far 64 crore voters have linked their voter ID cards with Aadhaar, while there are a total of about 97 crore voters in the country.

Why the need

The Election Commission has recently decided that it will issue new EPIC numbers to voters with duplicate numbers within three months. The Commission has said that having a duplicate number does not mean fake voter. Only those people can vote who are registered in a particular constituency. The main purpose behind linking Aadhaar with EPIC is to clean the voter list. This will help in identifying fake voters.

The government has also said that the Aadhaar-voter card seeding exercise is process-driven and no target or timeline has been set for the proposed linking. Apart from this, the names of those who do not link their Aadhaar details with the voter list will not be deleted from the voter list. This step aims to remove fake names from the voter list and make it clean. For this, it was not necessary to link Aadhaar and voter card.
This will help avoid fake voting and duplication by eliminating the possibility of a person voting in more than one place. Additionally, the removal of duplicate names from the voter list will make the election process more transparent. Under this process, those voters having duplicate voter ID cards will be issued new EPIC numbers in three months.

Possible benefits of linking voter ID and Aadhar

To make the electoral process in the country transparent and fair, the initiative to link voter ID and Aadhaar will help prevent fake voting in elections and make the voter list more reliable.

The linking will also help in doing away with bogus voting as often during elections, some people try to cast their vote in the name of another person, known as ‘bogus voting’. Due to the biometric data (fingerprint and iris scan) in the Aadhar card, the identity of the voter can be ensured through biometric verification in future, which will almost eliminate the chances of bogus voting.

Additionally, the possibility of voting in more than one state will be eliminated as sometimes people get included in the double voter list in different states and vote there too. By linking Aadhar, it will be easy to find out whether a person is registered at more than one place or not, which will prevent such irregularities.

It is often seen that many voter IDs are issued in the name of the same person at different places which makes it easy for people to vote multiple times. Through Aadhaar linking, a unique identity for each person will be established, which will eliminate the possibility of issuing multiple voter IDs in the name of the same voter.

Very often the voter list contains the names of dead people or records of non-resident persons, which leads to the possibility of fake voting. When voter ID is linked to Aadhaar, it will become easier to identify such invalid names and remove them from the list. This will allow only real and eligible voters to vote.

As fake and duplicate names are removed from the voter list through this linking process, the electoral process will become more reliable and fair and strengthen democracy.

However, some experts and political parties have expressed privacy-related concerns regarding Aadhaar linking by claiming that linking sensitive information like Aadhaar to voter ID can lead to data leaks. The government while implementing it, will have to look into issues related to data security and privacy so that the information of voters remains safe.

In 2021, after the amendment in the Representation of the People Act, 1951, permission was given to link the Aadhaar card with the Voter ID card or EPIC (Electors Photo Identity Card). After this, in 2022, the Election Commission started collecting Aadhaar numbers from voters on a voluntary basis. However, the Election Commission (EC) has not yet used Aadhaar numbers in its revisions of the voter list. Its purpose was to assist the Commission in detecting duplicate registrations of voters in the voter list. Aadhaar-EPIC linking has not been made mandatory for voters.

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