Until those are public, the only record of why is an empty box.

Transcript

1. In India, 85,854 forms to take people off the voter list
2. name an election officer as the objector.
3. Each form has a box for the reason.
4. Dead.
5. Moved away.
6. Listed twice.
7. On these, it's empty.
8. The state's own election chief agrees.
9. India is re-checking its voter lists, state by state.
10. In Uttar Pradesh, its most populous state,
11. the list went from 154 million voters to 134 million.
12. Any voter on the list can object to a name on this form, giving a reason.
13. The state put the forms online,
14. and an Indian newsroom,
15. The Reporters' Collective, copied all of them.
16. More than 430,000.
17. In 87,127, the objector is an election officer.
18. Nearly all of those give no reason.
19. Four of those officers told the reporters how.
20. Voters the system flagged were called to a hearing.
21. When one failed to convince the officer,
22. the Election Commission's software wrote this form by itself,
23. with the officer's digital signature already on it.
24. The state's election chief tells it differently.
25. He says no signature was needed, and calls the report misleading.
26. But he agrees an officer decided each case, at a hearing.
27. So on both accounts, the computer didn't decide who was removed.
28. An officer did.
29. The computer wrote the paperwork.
30. He says the reasons are in written orders from those hearings.
31. And the law does let an officer remove a name,
32. after giving the voter a chance to answer.
33. But none of those orders has been made public.
34. The forms are.
35. And on them, the box for the reason is empty.
36. In West Bengal, the election office said in March
37. that its count included forms the system generated.
38. The Wire, an Indian news site, read the state's deletion registers.
39. In nearly 524,000 rows, the officer is the objector, and the reason is blank.
40. An official there says the register has no space for one.
41. That doesn't mean those voters were wrongly removed.
42. It means the public record doesn't show why.
43. In Delhi this month, police detained thousands of people protesting the re-check.
44. Opposition leaders have asked
45. India's Supreme Court to order lists of deleted voters,
46. with the reasons.
47. The court has asked the Election Commission to respond.
48. The state says the reasons behind these 85,854 forms are in hearing orders.
49. Until those are public, the only record of why is an empty box.