For 97 voters in Goa, the problem was not that they failed to prove their eligibility.
They did.
Their cases were examined by election officials, documents and objections were considered, and the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) concluded that they should be included in the electoral roll.
Yet when Goa published its final electoral roll on February 21, 2026, their names were still missing.
The reason, according to an investigation by The Indian Express, was a technical hurdle in the Election Commission of India’s electoral software, ECINET. The system did not provide the EROs with an option to reverse the earlier decision that had flagged the voters.
The voters had already been heard
The 97 voters were among those flagged during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) for what the Election Commission called “logical discrepancies”.
These discrepancies were generated when the electoral database found mismatches while linking a voter with parents or grandparents in an earlier electoral roll. They could include differences in names, unusual age gaps between parents and children, or incorrect age progression between old and new rolls.
The Supreme Court had directed that voters facing such discrepancies should be given a chance to respond.
In its January 19 order in the West Bengal SIR matter, the court directed that the names of people facing logical discrepancies be displayed in public places and that they be given an additional 10 days to submit documents or objections and be heard. The directions were part of the court’s effort to ensure that affected voters got an opportunity to explain their cases.
Goa followed the process.
As many as 649 electors came forward with documents or objections. After examining their cases, election officials found 97 eligible for inclusion in the final roll.
But there was a problem: the officials could not make the required change in the software.
Seven days of emails, but no rollback option
The Goa election machinery had been trying to get the technical issue resolved before the final roll was published.
Between February 11 and 17, officials from the Chief Electoral Officer’s office repeatedly contacted officials at the Election Commission in Delhi, asking for a rollback or reversion facility.
The purpose was straightforward — the EROs needed to undo the earlier decision and enter the fresh decision taken after hearing the voters.
But the facility was not enabled before the February 21 deadline.
According to the investigation, Goa officials sent eight communications during this period to Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti, with ECI Director General of IT Seema Khanna copied on the requests.
Goa Electronics Limited, which supports the state CEO’s office, had also raised the issue with the CEO and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the software vendor. The state agency said the rollback, reversion and document re-upload facilities were still unavailable despite repeated requests from election officials.
By February 17, Goa formally sent the ECI the list of 97 voters and sought action so that their names could be included.
The final roll was published four days later.
The 97 names were not there.
When an official decision meets a software wall
The Goa case has now become part of a wider debate over how much control election officials on the ground have over the electoral database.
Under the electoral-roll system, EROs are statutory officials responsible for preparing and maintaining voter lists for their constituencies. The digital records are maintained through election software, with ECINET being the successor to ERONet.
The problem highlighted in Goa was not about whether the EROs had heard the voters or taken a decision.
They had.
The problem was that the system did not give them the technical option to record the decision.
Goa CEO Sanjay Goel told The Indian Express that the cases had been communicated to the ECI because the voters had been flagged for logical discrepancies. He also said ECINET should have a mechanism through which EROs could re-include voters after examining their cases.
The issue had been raised before the deadline
The Goa episode also comes against the backdrop of concerns raised within the Election Commission itself over the increasing centralisation of the electoral database.
Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi have, according to the investigation, raised objections on several occasions about how electoral-roll data and the IT systems were being handled.
Joshi had raised concerns about what he described as the “gradual centralisation” of the electoral-roll database, while Sandhu later questioned whether state-level election officials had complete access to the system needed to perform their statutory duties.
The two commissioners reportedly recorded such objections 14 times over a period of 10 months, covering issues including voter additions, deletions, restoration of names and access to the electoral database.
The Goa case provides a concrete example of the question they had raised: what happens when an election official reaches one decision, but the software does not allow that decision to be entered?
For voters, the impact is not limited to the ballot box
For the 97 people involved, being absent from the final electoral roll was not simply a matter of missing an election.
The electoral roll is also used for eligibility under some government schemes in Goa.
One such example cited in the report is the Goa Mediclaim Scheme, which provides assistance for certain specialised medical treatments, including dialysis, angioplasty, open-heart surgery, organ transplants, chemotherapy and cochlear implants.
With the names missing from the final roll, some affected voters were reportedly told to apply afresh through Form 6, the application used for new voter registration.
That leaves an unusual situation: voters who had already approached election officials, submitted their documents and were found eligible were still being asked to start the registration process again.
Where the 97 voters are from
The 97 voters are spread across several Assembly constituencies.
The largest group — 65 voters — belongs to Taleigao. Others are from St Cruz, Cumbarjua, Priol, Margao, Benaulim and Velim.
Goa’s final SIR roll, published on February 21, contained 10,57,566 voters after the revision exercise.
The number 97 may appear small compared with the size of the electoral roll.
But the Goa episode raises a much bigger procedural question: if an authorised election officer hears a voter, checks the documents and decides that the person is eligible, can that decision be carried out if the software does not allow it?
In Goa, at least for these 97 voters, the answer before the final-roll deadline was no.
