Bhubaneswar: The Odisha State Election Commission will conduct a statewide door-to-door survey from October 26 to November 7 to identify errors in electoral rolls ahead of the upcoming panchayat and urban local body elections.
The exercise aims to ensure a clean, accurate and impartial voter list and will be based on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) electoral roll published by the Election Commission of India on September 21, Odisha State Election Commissioner Madhusudan Padhi said.
Teams comprising Booth Level Officers (BLOs), Anganwadi workers, Jalasathis, Swachhasathis and ASHA workers will visit households to collect voter details. The exercise will be supervised by Panchayat Executive Officers (PEOs), BLO supervisors, Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) and Electoral Registration Officers (EROs).
Padhi has appealed to people to cooperate with the survey. Eligible voters whose names were deleted during the SIR exercise can seek re-inclusion by submitting the required documents. Form-16 will be used for claims relating to inclusion or correction of names, while objections to the inclusion of ineligible voters can be filed in Form-17.
Under the proposed arrangement, all eligible voters belonging to a family will be listed under a single booth to facilitate hassle-free voting.
A pilot survey conducted across all 30 districts using the 2025 electoral roll found that nearly 7.61 per cent of ineligible voters remained on the rolls due to factors such as death or migration, while around 4.87 per cent of eligible voters were missing. The statewide exercise is intended to address these discrepancies.
The Commission has also planned a major restructuring of polling booths. In rural areas, one booth will be set up for each ward, increasing the number of booths from around 39,000 to approximately 91,000. Voting in panchayat elections will be conducted using ballot papers.
In urban areas, around 6,000 polling booths are proposed initially, with additional booths to be set up if required. Municipal elections will be conducted using electronic voting machines (EVMs).
The draft electoral roll is scheduled to be published in January 2027, followed by a 20-day period for filing claims and objections. The final roll is targeted for publication by February 10, paving the way for the panchayat elections to be held within the stipulated timeframe, the Commission said.
