LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission (SEC) is planning to adopt the Election Commission of India's (ECI) electoral rolls for rural and urban local bodies elections in the state in the future to eliminate duplication and related issues. The development comes in the wake of large-scale complaints of names missing from voters' lists in the recently concluded municipal polls.

"We are working on a project targeting to have a common voter lists for the Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabha and panchayat and civic polls in the state.  Accordingly, We will launch a pilot project for Lucknow in this regard and hire an expert agency working in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) to import the Election Commission of India's electoral rolls data and prepare voter lists for panchayat and civic elections in the state ensuring that voters' names are common in both the State Election Commission and ECI's electoral rolls,  said state election commissioner Manoj Kumar.

"Since Uttar Pradesh is a very big state, there are some practical and technical issaues, and we are attemepting to overcome the same," he said, adding that many states had already adopted the ECI's electoral rolls for local body polls. Admitting many voters who voted in Assembly polls in 2022 did not have their name on the voter lists for urban local body (ULB) polls, he said. Comparatively lower voter turnout, especially in cities during the recent two-phase voting on May 4 and 11 was a matter of concern he said,.

"We are planning a workshop on this important issue to take suggestions from various people and act accordingly. The increasing mobility of urban voters may be an important reason for low voter turnout in cities," he said. Steps would be taken to increase the voting percentage in future elections after diagnosing the causes for urban voters' apathy. The average voting percentage in the civic polls this time was recorded to be 52.4 percent, Kumar said.

"As many as 32 lakh people visited the Commission's website four crore times during the poll period," he said, adding that people showed a keen interest in the civic polls in the state by trying to know things related to the polls through the commission's website.

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