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Voter ID Card Online Registration New Update: If you are going to get your Voter ID card made for the first time or your name has been removed from the voter list and you are applying again, then this news is very important for you. The Election Commission (EC) has made a major change in the process of including names in the voter list. Now it has been made mandatory for new voters to provide information about their parents' previous electoral records while applying online on the ECINET portal. Without this information your online application will not be processed further.

What is the new rule for making Voter ID?

Election Commission has added a new condition (SIR Declaration) in online Form 6. This is the same form through which first-time voters, citizens who have completed 18 years and those whose names have been removed earlier, apply again. Now while applying online, the applicant will have to tell whether his name was in the previous SIR voter list? If not, were his parents' or grandparents' names in the previous SIR voter list? Or was the name of any of them not in the previous SIR voter list? Unless this declaration is completed, the online Form 6 will not proceed.

What information will a new voter have to provide?

If the applicant chooses the first or second option, he will also have to fill some additional information. These include Assembly Constituency, polling booth number, serial number in the voter list. If this information is not available, the third option can be selected. However, at present the Election Commission has not clarified what effect this option will have on the further application.

Have the offline rules also changed?

Till now no formal amendment (Gazette Notification) has been issued regarding this in 'Registration of Electors Rules, 1960'. However, according to Election Commission officials, this change has been implemented through Administrative Instructions and has been made mandatory for online application.

It was first implemented in Bihar

According to the Election Commission, this SIR Declaration was first implemented during the SIR (Special Intensive Revision) campaign launched in Bihar. It has now been made a part of the online voter registration process even in those states and union territories where the SIR exercise has been conducted.

What is SIR?

SIR i.e. Special Intensive Revision is a special campaign, under which the Election Commission updates the voter list. In this process duplicate names are removed. Names of dead voters are removed. The names of people who have shifted to other places are removed. Names of foreign nationals are removed. Only eligible voters are kept in the voter list.

Why did the Election Commission make this change?

Officials say that with the new declaration it will be easier to track the family voter history of new voters. This will strengthen the identification process and in many cases may also reduce the need for additional documents.