Gen Z voting rights on hold as special summary revision stays stalled since January 2024

Amid simmering divisions in the Election Commission of India, crucial decisions, such as the annual revision of electoral rolls to include the 'Gen Z' 18-year-olds, are not only held up but have also overshot their May-June announcement timeline due to a lack of consensus between the chief election commissioner and the two election commissioners, ET has learnt.

The final electoral roll, which has been officially published across states in the first week of January for decades now without fail, is facing a break in convention.

No summary special revision (SSR) has been carried out after the 2024 cycle amid the launch of the special intensive revision (SIR) in Bihar in 2025. In fact, the annual SSR across states, a convention followed since 1958, has not been resumed in 2025-26, despite the two ECs - Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi - strongly advocating and urging the need to resume it, ET gathers.


ET has learnt that the standoff went as far as this: CEC sought legal opinion on the matter earlier this year to consider whether an SSR was needed amid the ongoing SIR.

Following the legal advice received, the two ECs are learnt to have made their stand clear on the need to resume SSR, as per ECI's own manual on electoral rolls, and considered necessary to include those turning 18 each year in the electoral roll.

Of late, the exercise has also been helpful in updating photo electoral rolls and checking for dissimilarities and mismatches. This exercise is key as it allows those turning 18 that year to apply on four dates: January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1.

Earlier, ECI took only January 1 as the cut-off, which meant that anyone born even a day later would have to wait a whole year to register as a voter. To remedy this, ECI now has four cut-off dates in a year, providing more opportunities for youth voters. For this reason, SSR is considered a time-sensitive exercise, with an intent to include as many eligible 18-year-old voters as possible in the electoral roll.

This exercise for 2026-27 is what is now in question. Usually, ECI announces the annual summary revision by the end of May or early June, with formal instructions sent out to chief electoral officers of all states.

Entire process in disarray

This communication triggers 'pre-revision activities', carried out over 2-3 months, followed by the publication of draft rolls between late August and early October. Claims and objections are then invited by ECI over a 30-45-day period. This entire process is now in disarray.

Further, it is considered imperative within the ECI ecosystem that the SSR be conducted, particularly in poll-bound states.

Even if one were to consider election-bound states like Uttarakhand and Punjab, which are still undergoing the SIR process, both poll-bound UP and Goa, which have already completed the process, should have their SSR conducted ahead of the 2027 assembly polls. Then there is the case of Bihar, the first state to undergo SIR. It has been a year since roll revision was conducted in the state.

administrative cost too

There is an administrative cost to the standoff. Annual confidential reports (ACRs) of nearly 50 officials transferred in 2025-26, including CEOs and deputy ECs, have been held up as CEC and the two ECs could not sign on them together, as required.

It is learnt that several of them have had to make rounds and personally request the CEC and each EC individually to get their ACRs cleared as the ECI brass could not do so collectively as a team. ET gathers that several ACRs are still awaiting clearance from ECI even as the officials have been posted elsewhere.