At a recent press conference, the Leader of the Opposition (LOP) in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, raised serious concerns about the electoral process and the integrity of the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections. He alleged that approximately 25 lakh questionable entries appeared on the state’s electoral rolls. Among the anomalies he cited was a striking example: a photograph of a Brazilian model reportedly used 22 times across different entries, highlighting the nature of the alleged irregularities. These discrepancies fall into three main categories: duplicate voter entries, invalid address entries, and bulk voter registrations – the latter referring to multiple voters being listed at the same address. In his November 5 press conference, his third addressing alleged inaccuracies in voter rolls, he asserted that these inaccuracies were not confined to a single constituency or remote area but reflected a consistent pattern across polling booths throughout the state.The Election Commission of India’s (ECI) response was swift. Its default defence regarding discrepancies in voter lists has been to deflect responsibility onto political parties, pointing to their failure to file objections. The Haryana Chief Electoral Officer followed the same line, disputing the figures instead of addressing the lapses. Rather than acknowledging concerns about possible inaccuracies, the state election commission focused on countering the claims made by opposition parties, stating that only 4.16 lakh claims/objections were received during the Special Summary Revision (SSR) of the electoral rolls preceding the election, and merely 23 election petitions were filed in the high court across the 90 assembly constituencies. It further questioned why, if the alleged anomalies were indeed so widespread, the parties’ booth-level agents (BLAs) had not raised objections during the revision process. These anomalies undoubtedly raise questions, not only about the failure of political parties to detect irregular entries, but also about the role of the ECI: Were these discrepancies simply overlooked, or identified and left unaddressed? Not only the ECI but also sections of the corporate media challenged these allegations, contending that the extent of the reported incongruities was far smaller than claimed by the LOP. Several media investigations concluded that while instances of duplication and imprecision in the voter rolls did exist, they did not necessarily translate into duplicate or fraudulent voting. In other words, despite imperfections in the lists, citizens were still able to cast their votes without apparent disruption. But the central issue extends beyond whether a specific individual voted once or twice; it concerns the reliability of the electoral rolls themselves, which are foundational elements for ensuring public trust in the electoral process.Establishing a causal link between errors in the electoral rolls and final poll outcomes requires more than mere circumstantial correlation. The jump from identifying flaws in the voter lists to alleging a coordinated fraud orchestrated by the ECI in collusion with the BJP to disadvantage the Congress and other opposition parties remains, at this stage, unsubstantiated and unproven. Integrity of the electoral process challengedThe real issue, therefore, is not the rigging of the polls, but the reliability of the rolls themselves: how could 5,21,619 people cast their votes when, as news reports confirm, the photographs on the rolls and those on their identification cards did not match?The extent of errors observed in Haryana’s voter rolls, and in other states as well, casts doubt on the integrity and accountability of the electoral process. The case involving the Brazilian model stands out as a vivid illustration of the alleged glitches. While such an example may appear unusual or isolated, it points to a broader pattern of duplication and misidentification, including the repeated use of identical photographs under different names. If verified, these instances would amount to serious breaches of the procedural safeguards intended to protect the integrity of the electoral process.The stakes are further heightened by the small margins of victory in several constituencies. When elections are closely contested, even minor loopholes in voter lists can prove decisive. In Haryana, where the Congress lost by just 22,779 votes, the accuracy of the electoral rolls becomes even more critical. Even a small number of duplicate registrations or erroneous entries could, in such circumstances, influence outcomes and erode confidence in the “one person, one vote” principle. It highlights how crucial it is to ensure accurate and dependable voter rolls, not just in this state, but nationwide, as electoral contests grow ever closer.While the claims and counterclaims underline the need to revise voter rolls, they also expose a deeper structural flaw: the ECI cannot invoke the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), a mechanism designed to enhance the accuracy of future rolls, to evade accountability for discrepancies observed in the earlier polls. The SIR is intended to prevent future errors, not to explain glitches in the 2024 Assembly elections retrospectively. Cases of multiple registrations, duplicate EPIC numbers, and unusually dense clusters of voters at single addresses pertain directly to the conduct of that specific election and need to be looked into independently of the SIR. The ongoing SIR cannot determine whether these irregularities occurred and whether they influenced results, or how they arose in the first place. The Haryana election data thus spotlights two interconnected concerns: the accuracy of voter rolls and the accountability of the institutions that are expected to maintain them. Electoral integrity depends not only on preventing future errors through processes like the SIR but also on ensuring that past elections are verifiable and trustworthy.Erosion of public confidenceDemocracy depends not only on the vote, but on the guarantee that every ballot is accurately recorded and that electoral institutions operate impartially. Alleged mismatches and duplicate entries, as highlighted by the opposition and reported in the media, call that guarantee into question. When citizens lose confidence in the integrity of the vote, the legitimacy of both the electoral outcome and the government it produces is put at risk. The ECI has long been among India’s most trusted institutions, representing procedural neutrality and administrative integrity. If that trust weakens through systemic lapses, political interference, or even perceived bias, the belief that sustains democratic governance erodes. The current voter roll controversies demand more than routine verification; they require a renewed commitment to institutional independence, transparency and accountability that transcend partisan interests. The failure to seriously investigate the opposition’s allegations of inaccuracies signals not an abstract threat to democracy, but a tangible erosion of public confidence. What is at stake is not merely the outcome of one election, but faith in the electoral process itself, the conviction that the right to vote and the act of voting still carry the political weight it promised.Zoya Hasan is Professor Emerita, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.