EC resolves duplicate voter card number issue

Election Commission has resolved a nearly 20-year-old issue of similar Electoral Photo Identity Card- EPIC numbers, which got issued to genuine electors due to similar series being used by different EROs since 2005. All such electors have since been issued new EPIC cards with new numbers. The resolution came in ECI’s efforts to sanitize the electoral rolls and keep them updated. The entire electoral database of over 99-crore electors was searched by Chief Electoral Officers of all the states and Union Territories and Electoral Registration Officers of all the Assembly constituencies and polling stations across the country. During the field level verification, it was found that holders of such similar EPIC numbers were genuine electors in different assembly constituencies and different polling stations. The genesis of the issue has been traced from 2005, when various States and Union Territories were using Assembly Constituency-wise different alphanumeric series in a decentralised manner.
These series had to be changed again in 2008, after delimitation of constituencies. During this period, some assemblies "erroneously" continued to use either the old series or because of typographic errors they used the series allotted to some other constituencies, the sources explained. It was found that around 2.75 lakh electors across the country who were  having the same EPIC numbers as electors in other states.