Linking Aadhar With Voter’s Id Card: Implications & Challenges

The expansion of Aadhaar ecosystem has revolutionized and upgraded the identification processes. It has led to significant cost savings, improved transparency and service delivery, curbing leakages and promoted efficiency and productivity.

A total of 99.7% of India's adult population has already been enrolled in Aadhaar.

• For leveraging the multiple benefits of the Aadhaar, the Election Commission of India had recommended linking of Aadhaar with the Electoral Id Card with an aim to prevent duplicity of names in the voter list. The proposal was first mooted in March 2015. Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021 has paved the way for linking of Aadhaar Card with Electoral Id card.

History of the Proposal

• The project of linking Aadhaar with voter ID cards to purify electoral rolls was started under the National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP) of the Election Commission in 2015.
• It was first rolled out as a pilot project in Nizamabad and Hyderabad regions. But the Supreme Court halted the linking process in August 2015.
• In August 2019, the Election Commission sent a proposal to the Union government for voter ID and Aadhaar linkage.
• It requested for amendment of laws to empower electoral registration officers to seek Aadhaar number of existing voters as well as of those applying to enroll themselves in the voters’ list.
• In March 2020, the Union law ministry had told Parliament that the Election omission had sought to use the Aadhaar database as a means of enabling it to ensure preparation of error-free electoral roll and to prevent duplication of entries.

Benefits of Linking Aadhaar with Electoral Id

• Verifies Identity and weeds out Duplicity: Linking of the voter identity cards with the Aadhar cards will help in verifying the identity of the voters and weed out bogus voters.
• It will make the electoral rolls error free, ensuring free and fair elections.
• Eliminates Imposters: Two-step verification process, through the voter registration card and then through Aadhaar would make it impossible for imposters to steal anyone's right to franchise.
• Minimizes Multiple Enrolments: Aadhaar linking with electoral roll will also solve the problem of multiple enrolments of the same person at different places.
• Ensure Right to Vote to Migrants: The Amendment would make it possible for migrants to not lose their right to vote just because they have moved to another part of the country.
• Lack of voter turnout due to migration has been an important issue requiring attention.

Associated Challenges

• Violates Right to Privacy: The linking of the voter identity cards with the Aadhar cards violates the fundamental right - Right to Privacy - as it may enable the political parties to profile voters.
  • For e.g., in March 2019, a private firm which had developed the Telugu Desam Party’s app Seva Mitra in Andhra Pradesh was booked for data theft. According to the Cyberabad Police, it had comprehensive profiles of voters along with an option to identify their party-wise affiliations.
• Exclusion of Voters: It may lead to deletion of names of persons from the voter list. During 2018 Telangana Assembly elections, lakhs of voters were unable to cast their votes as their names were missing from the electoral rolls because Telangana State Election Commission had used Aadhaar to delete nearly 30 lakh voters without carrying out proper door-to-door verification .
• Conflict of Interest: As the electoral roll are in the control of Election Commission which is a constitutional body under Article 324 of the Indian Constitution while the body responsible for Aadhar is the Unique Identification Authority of India which works under the control of executive arm of the government. This creates a conflict of interest in the exercise of linking of Aadhar card with voter cards.
• Identity Proof being used as Citizenship Proof: Aadhar is not a citizenship proof as anybody residing in any place for more than 6 months can avail Aadhar card and it acts as identity proof.
• Faulty Systems: Fingerprint readers that fail because of defective equipment, blurred prints on chafed fingers, faulty data connectivity or server error can lead to denial of right to vote to people.