The Election Commission (EC) announced that in states where the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is not underway, the online submission of Form 6—used for fresh voter registration—will again be accepted without the attached declaration that had been required during the SIR process.
Form 6 normally registers new voters, but during SIR it also re‑enlisted those deleted in the enumeration phase. A separate declaration was added to the physical form to map a person or their parents to previous SIR rolls. When applicants filled the form online, the system forced them to complete the declaration before submission, a requirement flagged by Commissioners Vivek Joshi and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu in May and August 2026.
In a press release on 26 September 2026, the EC said the declaration would be used only while SIR is active. On 29 September, it removed the fields for parents’ and grandparents’ details from the online Form 6 and placed the declaration in a separate category that applies only to states still in the SIR process.
Officials explained that Form 6 itself was never amended; the declaration was added separately and approved by the full commission when SIR began in Bihar last year and ratified in subsequent phases. The requirement to fill the declaration arose from IT‑department changes that eliminated the need for a second e‑signature, but still mandated the declaration. The Supreme Court upheld the EC’s authority to add the declaration on 27 May 2026.
