Procedural reforms, technology upgrade under way to strengthen election exercise, says EC official

Election Commission of India implementing technology changes, procedural reforms to strengthen election integrity, boost participation, improve voter convenience.

The Election Commission of India (EC) is in the process of implementing several technology-level changes and on-the-ground procedural reforms aimed at strengthening election integrity, boosting elector participation and improving voter convenience, said its Deputy Director P. Pawan on Wednesday, June 11, 2025.

While several improvements were targeted at electors, who were the building blocks of democracy, the EC has also initiated pan-India all-party meetings at the CEO/DEO/ERO level and interactions with the heads of national and State political parties, the deputy director at EC’s media division said at an interaction with select media persons.

“This approach of proactively engaging with political parties is a paradigm shift,” Mr. Pawan said.

On the technology front, an upgraded digitisation effort to build an ECINET platform is under way to facilitate rapid dissemination of VTR (voter turnout) figures, other electoral data and statistical reports. It will feature an integrated dashboard that can replace at least 40 different apps/websites and provide all election-related information at a single point. The platform is being beta tested and is likely to be launched before the Bihar elections, expected later this year, Mr. Pawan said.

A new mechanism for unique Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) is also being put in place. This will largely eliminate duplication of EPIC numbers arising from increase in the proportion of voters that led to situations of different voters sharing identical alpha-numeric sequence. “However, the instances of EPIC number duplication have been found to be minuscule,” Mr. Pawan said.

Meanwhile, the EC is also exploring modalities of EPIC-Aadhaar linkage to avoid duplication or abuse. Technical consultations are in progress in this regard.

According to Mr. Pawan, another measure was to break a nearly two-decade hiatus in conducting a special summary revision ahead of byelections scheduled in four places this month. “While usually, these exercises are conducted annually, the law provides for undertaking a revision ahead of a byelection,” he said.