Says appeals decided treated by ECI as conducted without jurisdiction
Members of the SIR Citizens’ Monitor Goa addressing the media on the SIR process.
MARGAO
The SIR Citizens’ Monitor Goa has once again termed the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) 2026 Electoral Roll process as a fundamentally flawed and arbitrary exercise that has inflicted untold hardship on genuine voters.
The group comprising of Elvis Gomes, Albertina Almeida and Amar Gaonkar, guiding people who have remained either unmapped or in the ASDD category through the appeal stage said that appeals heard and decided by the Additional Collector—under Rule 23 of the Registration of Electors Rules—were now treated by the ECI as conducted without jurisdiction.
“This decision effectively nullified the results of those hearings after the process had already concluded” said Adv Albertina Almeida. She pointed out that the entire SIR 2026 process was designed to empower authorities to exclude citizens.
Unveiling the key failures documented during the period includes, faulty enumeration: “From the inception, forms were not duly distributed to all citizens. The Monitor noted that this was either due to ulterior motives or a total failure of the systems intended to assist in distribution”, she said.
She pointed out that the names of several persons were deleted from the draft roll without any notice of deletion. Furthermore, the claims and objections process was kept unavailable for those whose names were removed in this manner, she added.
Elvis Gomes said that no remedy was provided for those on the Absent, Shifted, Dead, or Duplicate (ASDD) list. This group included individuals temporarily out of their premises due to domestic violence or those who were denied forms by family members, he said.
He added: “At the appellate stage, manipulative strategies were employed to force people to withdraw their appeals and fill Form 6. This was contrary to law, as the concerned persons were neither first-time voters nor had they shifted their residence. The most critical failure occurred at the Appellate Stage. After citizens endured a harrowing process of queuing and gathering documents, their efforts were rendered meaningless”.
Saying that the SIR process was a sham from the start, Albertina said "Authorities led citizens through a legal maze only to announce at the finish line that the Appellate Officer lacked the jurisdiction to hear the case. This confirmed that the entire exercise was open to complete manipulation."
Gomes on the other hand said “Throughout the process, there was no guarantee that successful appeals would result in names being included in the SIR 2026 final roll. While assurances were made regarding "supplementary rolls," authorities failed to clarify whether these would be part of the SIR or the regular electoral roll, leaving thousands in a state of electoral limbo.
He said the SIR Citizens’ Monitor Goa stands by its assessment that the SIR 2026 was a managed effort to disenfranchise legitimate voters through administrative chaos.
