PUNE: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has directed all booth level officers (BLOs) to prepare a list of absent/shifted and deceased voters ahead of the announcement of the election schedule to prevent bogus voting.According to officials, a marking will be made for internal reference and given to all polling stations to ensure that it is subjected to careful scrutiny with the help of a special software.Election officials told TOI that this is part of verification of electoral rolls in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections.Voters’ names will be cross checked with these lists at the time of polling.“It is a verification process which is mandatory to ensure that there is no duplication,” an official said.Election officers from each district have been asked to direct booth level officers to prepare the list after visiting each houses and re-confirming the names.In a bid to prevent impersonation, the list will be an added checklist, besides the usual voter ID proof, added the officials. This has been done for the assembly elections held in other states, stated the ECI official.In Pune district , there are 7666 polling booths and nearly 15,000 officials. The BLOs appointed for each booth would have to take the responsibility of the list as directed by the ECI.With citizens complaining about duplication of names and even wrong addresses, the election officials have asked citizens to apply on Form 7 for deletion of names and on Form 8 for making corrections.Voters can make the changes in the electoral rolls 10 days prior to filing of nominations for the elections.The election officials have stated that those who are aware that the list reflects names of the deceased and those who have moved out of Pune can also come forward and delete the names online or approach the election officials. Pune district has 73.63lakh voters as per the summary revision.Pune district has registered the highest number of voters in the state and election officials have urged citizens to make the necessary corrections ahead of the announcement schedule. There are 8.7crore voters in the final list declared by the state government.A citizen, who did not want to be named, said that even though he had applied for deletion of a name, it continues to be reflected twice on the voter list.“Election officials should thoroughly check duplicate names and even extra names in the voter list ahead of the announcement of the election schedule. They should not delete the names without properly checking, keeping in mind the “missing name” issue that came up in the 2014 elections,’’ said another citizen who has applied for deletion of name in the hope that both his names are not deleted.

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