Voters who have been marked as Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate (ASDD) in the seven States where the SIR process is on at present can now fill the Enumeration Form again to get back into the list instead of resorting to Form 6 which is used for registration of first time voters.
These electors were marked absent as their Enumeration Forms had been issued but not received back, resulting in their exclusion from the Draft Electoral Rolls during the ongoing SIR exercise.
The ECI directive comes after the Supreme Court on October 28 while hearing a petition filed by activists Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri on deletion of voters through SIR in Delhi, had asked the Election Commission why it was asking the deleted voters to use Form 6 for re-inclusion in rolls and why Form 8 could not be used.
In a directive to CEOs of seven states, Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Telangana and Nagaland, the ECI on Friday (November 6, 2026) said that booth-wise lists of all such electors, who were marked as Absent/Shifted/Dead/Duplicate (ASDD) and whose Enumeration Forms were not received back and consequently who could not be included in the Draft Electoral Roll during the ongoing SIR, shall be displayed afresh on the notice boards of the respective polling stations, from where the names were deleted with the probable reasons for non-inclusion of the names of such electors.
Partially filled Enumeration Forms in respect of all such ASDD electors shall be generated afresh in ERO dashboard in ECINET.
In case an elector has not shifted residence, they may submit their duly filled-in and signed Enumeration Forms along with the enclosed statement, mentioning the reason as to why they could not submit the Enumeration Form earlier while those who have shifted the place of residence within the State, shall submit Enumeration Form along with the Statement enclosed indicating the new address and the Assembly Constituency.
Till now, voters whose names were missing in the draft rolls had to fill Form 6 to re-enter the electoral rolls. Form 6, includes a declaration which says that the said voter has not been registered anywhere else and this had led to concerns among many regarding the legality of the process.
The ECI clarified that for those voters who have already filled in Form 6, need not submit the enumeration form with the statement afresh.
Shortly after the ECI communique, Ms. Bharadwaj and Ms. Johri welcomed the move. “We believe this is an important step in addressing large scale exclusions caused during SIR. The provision to re-assign the old EPIC numbers is important as it will ensure preservation of voter’s historical record of being an existing voter”.
“Just in Delhi, out of 47.56 lakh deleted in the first phase and put on ASDD, 31.59 lakh were marked as permanently shifted and 11.73 as absent/untraceable,” they said.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said it was a belated admission that wrongful deletion and exclusion has indeed taken place under the ASDD (Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate) category.
“The ECI is carrying out corrective after corrective after the nation-wide outrage and anger over SIR which has robbed over 13 crore Indians of their constitutional right to vote. Every new set of orders begs the question: what was the point of this bureaucratic mess that every Indian has been put through? These repeated clarifications and amendments actually expose the true intent of the diabolical PM-HM. They have been caught out,” he said.
