Door-to-Door Voter Verification from Oct 26 as Odisha Gears Up for Local Body Polls

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha State Election Commission (SEC) has unveiled a comprehensive roadmap for the forthcoming Panchayat and Urban Local Body (ULB) elections, announcing a statewide door-to-door voter verification drive from October 26 to November 7 to ensure error-free electoral rolls and improve voter participation.

The decision was taken following a review meeting with Collectors of all 30 districts. SEC Secretary Santosh Kumar Das said the Commission will deploy a specialised de-duplication software tool alongside extensive field verification to prepare accurate voter lists.

Das said the Commission decided against relying solely on the conventional table-top splitting of the Election Commission of India (ECI) electoral rolls after past exercises resulted in several discrepancies. “Earlier, voters from one ward were shifted to another and members of the same family were placed in different polling booths. These errors caused inconvenience, triggered complaints and legal disputes, and affected voter turnout,” he said.

To eliminate such errors, verification teams will physically inspect all 45,258 polling booths across Odisha. Each team, headed by a Booth Level Officer (BLO) and assisted by local field functionaries such as Anganwadi and ASHA workers, will be constituted by July 31 and undergo training before the survey begins.

According to the Commission’s schedule, the draft electoral roll will be published after the survey, followed by the disposal of claims and objections. The final electoral roll will be published by February 10.

The SEC is also introducing digital reforms to streamline election management. The nomination process for both Panchayat and Municipal elections will be fully automated, enabling real-time monitoring of nominations filed, withdrawals, and the final list of valid candidates.

In addition, District Collectors and Block Development Officers (BDOs) will receive standardised inspection formats to assess polling stations, strong rooms and counting centres at least six months before the elections.

On the election timeline, Das said the nationwide Census operations are scheduled between February and the first week of March, following which the State Election Commission will issue the election notification.

After the Census work is completed, the election notification will be issued after the first week of March. The Panchayat and Urban Local Body elections are expected to be held in April or May, he said.