Title : THE VOTER ID AADHAR LINKAGE

Date : Dec 22, 2021

Description :

GS II

 

Topic à Election related issues

 

• Context:

 

• The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, aims to alter the Representation of the People Act to include essential measures such as voluntary voter ID linking with Aadhaar.

 

• Aadhaar and voter ID must be linked:

 

• Since 2015, the Election Commission has been requesting this. To link the Aadhaar number with the voter ID number, the EC created the National Electoral Law Purification and Authentication Program. The connection, according to the report, will weed out repeated enrolments under one person's name.
• The programme was put on hold at the time because the Supreme Court ruled that using Aadhaar to access welfare programmes would be voluntary.
• As a result, the EC revised its plan and said that the linkage would be optional.

 

• Other clauses in the bill include:

 

• It will allow new voters to register on four qualifying dates instead of the current January 1 each year.
• Anyone turning 18 on or before January 1 is currently eligible to register as a voter. After a year, anyone born after January 1 will be required to enlist.
• According to the bill, in addition to January 1, there will be three more qualifying dates in each calendar year: April 1, July 1, and October 1.
• The reforms also make it possible for service voters to vote in gender-neutral elections.
• The modification will help to make the statutes "gender neutral" by replacing the word "wife" with "spouse."
• Currently, an Army officer's wife can register as a service voter, but a woman officer's husband cannot. This will change as the term 'wife' is replaced by the term'spouse.'

 

• What Are the Concerns About Aadhaar Seeding and Voter ID:

 

• The proposal doesn't say how much data will be shared between the ECI and UIDAI databases, how consent will be obtained, or whether consent to link the databases may be rescinded.
• Any move to allow data exchange could be problematic in the absence of a strong personal data protection law – a Bill in that regard has yet to pass Parliament.
• There would be an invasion of the individual's privacy.

 

• Source à The Hindu à 20/12/21 à Page Number 9

Tags : ECI and UIDAI