A gargantuan task is underway to update the longest voter list in the world. This is India, and that’s nearly a billion people whose details need to be verified before they’re allowed to participate in the world’s largest democracy.
Across the country, tens of thousands of civil servants are rushing to input voter details into a database, by hand. And the deadline is New Year’s Eve for India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh.
The last list dates from 2003 and authorities say it needs cleaning up to reflect mass migration from the countryside to the cities, the accumulation of deceased voters and to remove those on the list illegally.
Twelve states and union territories –– home to some 500 million people –– have been making updates since early November, vetting which voters can participate in the next polls.
Schoolteacher Prem Lata is one of the over 500,000 government employees that have been pulled into the undertaking. Since early November she has been waking up at five in the morning, with her shifts often dragging late into the night. For this work, she and other Booth Level Officers, are paid an extra 1,000 rupees ($11) per month.
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