Aadhaar linkage

The Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021 allowed Electoral Registration Officers to seek the Aadhaar number of an existing or prospective elector for the purpose of authenticating entries and identifying duplicates across constituencies. The stated aim is roll purity: the same person registered in two states votes once but inflates two rolls.

The linkage was made explicitly voluntary after challenges argued that a de facto mandate would exclude electors without Aadhaar and would import an identity database built for benefits delivery into a franchise it was never designed to police. The voluntariness is the compromise, and the fight over whether it holds in practice recurs with every revision exercise.