97 Goa voters were found eligible for inclusion in the final SIR roll but remained missing from it.
Goa officials repeatedly sought a rollback facility after EROs decided that the voters' earlier deletions should be reversed.
The case has put the functioning and centralised control of ECINet's electoral-roll system under scrutiny.
During the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), EROs heard cases of voters who had been flagged for "logical discrepancies". After examining their cases and documents, the EROs found 97 voters eligible for inclusion in the final electoral roll. However, according to a report by Indian Express, the software did not provide an option to reverse the earlier action and restore their names. The Goa Chief Electoral Officer's office subsequently sought a "rollback" option from EC officials.
Every time a person applies to become a voter, seeks a correction in the electoral roll or a change in address, the application eventually makes its way to ERONET, the Election Commission's centralised system for managing India's voter database.
What Happened To The 97 Voters?
The issue arose after voters flagged for “logical discrepancies” in the electoral roll came forward with documents and objections. Goa's EROs and Assistant EROs examined the cases and found 97 voters eligible to be included in the final SIR roll. However, the earlier decisions to strike off their names had already been entered into ECINet, and the EROs did not have the software facility to reverse those decisions.
With the final roll due to be published on February 21, Goa's Chief Electoral Officer's office repeatedly sought a rollback/reversion facility. Goa Electronics Limited, which supports the CEO's office on the software, also wrote that the required functionality had not been provided despite multiple requests from electoral officials.
On February 18, Deputy Election Commissioner Sanjay Kumar wrote to the Election Commission's IT division that the IT system could not block necessary action under the Supreme Court's directions and asked that the required facility be enabled so the roll could be published according to the decisions taken by the EROs and AEROs. The Indian Express subsequently checked the names and reported that they remained missing as of September 20.
Why Is ECINet Important In This Case?
ERONET, along with the EC's newer ECINet platform, has come into focus following a report in The Indian Express that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi raised concerns over centralisation of the electoral roll database and the degree of control available to election officials in states. The two systems are closely linked but are not the same.
ERONET is essentially the back-end electoral roll management system used by election officials to process applications for registration, migration, correction and deletion of voters. ECINet is a broader platform launched earlier this year to bring more than 40 existing EC applications and websites, including electoral roll services, under one umbrella.
Launched on January 22, 2026, it brings together more than 40 applications and websites that the poll body had built over the years for voters, candidates, political parties and election officials. For voters, these services range from registration and searching electoral rolls to tracking applications, downloading electronic voter identity cards and finding information about polling stations and candidates.
The electoral roll functions earlier handled through ERONET have now been integrated into the ECINet platform. In official documents, the EC now refers to it as the "Electoral Roll module of ECINET Portal (previously ERONET)".
In simple terms, ERONET was built specifically to manage electoral rolls, while ECINet is the larger platform into which those functions and several other election-related services have been integrated.
