One of the obvious successes of Indian democracy has been the regular conduct of elections and relatively high voter participation in the voting process as compared to other countries. Apart from the fact that the process is relatively simple with the use of Electronic Voting Machines, high turnout has also been made possible due to the registration drive by the Election Commission of India (ECI). From time to time, ECI has to face the issue of cleaning of electoral rolls due to increase in migrant population in urban areas, demographic changes due to entry of more eligible voters, deaths of old people. But frequent elections have allowed harmonization of the process and allowed voters to register based on proof of their age and current place of residence. With the increase in the school-educated population, and the majority of Indian citizens living in households whose addresses are mentioned in many identification documents, registering to vote is a relatively easy process. This begs the question why Election officials are forcing citizens to compulsorily link their registration with their Aadhar numbers in the electoral rolls, as indicated by recent reports. In December 2021, Lok Sabha passed Election Law (Amendment) Bill There is a demand to link the voter ID card with the Aadhaar number so that errors like voter duplication in the voter list can be avoided. But officials from the government, and later, the Election Commission, insisted that the process would be voluntary.
Aadhaar number is not a proof of citizenship and is to be issued to residents while only adult citizens resident in India are eligible to vote. In fact, it is not an easy process to match the Aadhar number with the voter list to do the verification. The Internet Freedom Foundation has cited data to show that self-reported errors in the Aadhaar database are higher than in electoral databases. There is also evidence that Aadhaar-linking with voter IDs, for example in the recent assembly elections in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, led to the arbitrary removal of eligible voters on a large scale. Moreover, with Aadhaar numbers now being used to access various services, linking to voter ID cards, when collected from booth level data, can potentially be misused by agencies that collect them. Profiles can reach voters based on the information. The absence of a data protection law also increases the risk of this possibility. Scholars who study elections in different countries agree that the simplicity of the design and the effectiveness of constitutional institutions such as the ECI have gone a long way in simplifying voting and distinguishing India as an electoral democracy. The emphasis on linking Aadhaar with voter ID is against these principles. ECI should limit itself to the use of existing proofs for voter authentication and Aadhaar declaration should be voluntary.