The Election Commission on Thursday announced the third phase of SIR covering the rest of the country except Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh and involving 36.74 crore voters.
The states and UTs where the SIR will be conducted are Delhi, Odisha, Mizoram, Sikkim, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Telangana, Punjab, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Tripura, Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.
The poll panel said the SIR schedule for Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh would be announced later, keeping in view the weather conditions in snow-bound areas.
The rules that governed the SIR in phase 2 would apply this time as well. Voters can map themselves to either the intensively revised rolls from two decades ago or the recent SIR rolls. Otherwise, they may be asked to submit any of the 11 specified documents to prove their eligibility. Aadhaar will be accepted only as proof of identity.
The "logical discrepancies" filter, which applied to logical fallacies like age or name mismatch in voter lists and identity documents in the first phase, was expanded in the second phase to include those with more than five siblings or those whose age gap with their parents and grandparents was above or below a stipulated range.
Former election commissioner Ashok Lavasa said: “I think one big problem which has come up is this tool of logical discrepancy. The EC should make it public."
Lavasa added: "Former election commissioner Ashok Lavasa said I think that is something which the ECI owes to the people... to explain the process that they will adopt, whether they will use logical discrepancy, what is the meaning of logical discrepancy and whether there will be enough time for people to get their grievances addressed."
Booth-level officers will visit houses during the month-long enumeration phase in each state and Union Territory. Final rolls will be published from September 6 to December 23.
In the 10 states and three Union Territories covered by the SIR so far, the electoral rolls have shrunk by almost 9.6 per cent. Unlike summary revisions, intensive revisions prepare the rolls afresh. The current SIR introduced document-based verification based on citizenship rules. The Supreme Court has reserved its judgment on a raft of pleas challenging the constitutionality of the move.
Assam conducted a special revision, which did not prepare the rolls afresh but led to a reduction in voters. This was done as the update of Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC), under the Supreme Court's watch since 2013, is still underway. The NRC will verify the citizenship of the state's residents, which the EC is expected to rely on during the SIR there.