Mismatch in electoral rolls, polling booth changes confuse voters in civic polls

Follow Here | Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Election Results 2026

In Dharavi, Aiman Khan said the polling station shown online did not match the physical list. “According to the online portal, my polling station is 109 at Morning Star school. However, when we reached here, I was told that my name had not appeared on the physical list at the polling station. I was told to go to the polling centre at the Chhatrapati school,” she said.

Vijay Jadhav of Kumbharwada faced a similar issue.

“Despite being a resident of Kumbharwada, my polling booth is nearly half an hour away in the Kala Killa area. When I reached there, they said that I will not be able to vote as my name has not appeared on the physical list,” he said.

Mayur Prajapati, who shifted from Dahisar to Borivali and updated his voter ID, said his name could not be found despite the Borivali booth being shown online.

“Even for today, a voting centre in Borivali was shown in my name online. But when I went to the centre, they could not find my name. My brother found his name in Dahisar, based on old voter ID, so I came here to check, but was unable to find it,” he said.

Officials said confusion increased as many voters used the Election Commission of India website instead of the Maharashtra State Election Commission website, which carries booth-level details for local polls. The SEC website was also inaccessible for much of the day.

Several voters who had voted at the same booths for years found their names missing.

Amitabh Guha of Dahisar said he could not locate his name at his usual centre. “But my voting card is on the old address and I have voted for Loksabha and Vidhansabha elections on the same ID,” he said.

Citizen activist Suresh Lad said the such issues were widespread.

“The list that is provided is not updated online. Additionally, the localities are not sorted like before, making it difficult to locate polling booth for voters. With many housing societies under redevelopment, voters reached to polling booths where they voted in the past, but only to know that their names are not included in that centre’s list,” he said.

In some cases, members of the same family were assigned different polling booths. “Our family had to move from one polling centre to another for all of us to cast our votes,” said Ali Nawaz.