Bengaluru: Gearing up for next year’s Lok Sabha polls, the Election Commission on Friday kicked off the summary revision of electoral rolls in Karnataka.

The exercise will continue till December 9 during which applications can be submitted for corrections in name and addresses — a period of claims and objections — and final electoral rolls will be published on January 5, it said. As per the Draft Electoral Rolls-2024 shared by the EC, the number of total general voters in Karnataka is 5,33,77,162, including 2,68,02,838 (2.68 crore) men and 2,65,69,428 (2.66 crore) women.

The EC stated that the number of polling stations as per the Final Electoral Rolls-2023 was 58,282, and as per the Draft Electoral Rolls-2024 was 58,834. As many as “845 polling stations were added, 293 have been merged and there is a net increase of 552 polling stations,” it said. “So, we request all citizens to kindly check your name and all particulars of your name in the electoral roll. If there is any mistake in the particulars, you can use form 8 (to rectify it),” Karnataka’s Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Meena told reporters. “If your name is not there and if you have just turned 18, then you can use form 6 to enroll your name. You can do it by using voter service portal or voter helpline mobile app. These are very simple apps. Documents required is very simple,” he added. According to the EC, the draft electoral rolls of 224 assembly constituencies have been published in the offices of the Deputy Commissioners of all the districts, Electoral Registration Officers, Assistant Electoral Roll Registration Officers and all polling stations coming under their jurisdiction, for the information of public on October 27.

“If there are any objections regarding names or any entries in the roll, you can file an objection in Form 7. It (Form 7) can be used for deletion also and for filing objections also. After December 9, till December 27, we will dispose all these claims and objections and on January 5th, we will have a final electoral roll published,” Meena said. Eligible voters can download Voter Helpline App in their mobile phone for submitting the applications. They can also submit the applications on https://voterportal.Eci.Gov.In/ portal.

A special drive will be conducted on November 18-19, and December 2-3 for enrollment of voters - in case anybody has been left out, especially women voters, young voters, socially vulnerable classes such as transgender voters, sex workers and nomadic tribes, Meena said.

The EC stated that out of 224 assembly constituencies, Bengaluru South has the highest number of voters at 7,06,207 and Shringeri in Chikkamagaluru district the lowest at 1,66,907. In total, from the election roll of 2023 to the draft roll of 2024, there were 18,88,243 applications received, of which 16,31,547 were approved, and 1,71,964 rejected mostly due to lack of proper documents, Meena said.