Presentation to Election Commission E-Rolls (Uniformity, Standardization and Central Database)

Present Status PDF format Electoral Rolls on the CEO websites-No search facility No checking of duplicates. In most cases bilingual electoral rolls not available. There is no provision for making on-line applications Citizens have no way to track application No effective monitoring mechanism for tracking applications. Photo mismatches as the photographs kept separately and matched only at the time of printing. There is mismatch with EPIC as EPIC database is Separate Data security is minimal – Most of the data is with vendors

Stages of the Process Standardization and bringing about uniformity in the Electoral Rolls throughout the country Having a Centralized Electoral Database with on-line database management system

Stages of Standardization and Uniformity Standardization of Control tables (Master tables) Standardization of Electoral Data (E_details table)

Standardization of Control Tables Beta version of software is ready This may be released to the CEOs and data of control tables imported to the Commission server This will be a painstaking process with lot of effort – Font conversion to Unicode Transliteration to English Proper Linking of Data Manual Correction and editing This process is likely to take at least 3 to 4 months with continuous work by all CEOs

Need for Font Conversion - Language : Hindi Before Conversion After Conversion

Risks of Font Conversion Accuracy of software in less than 99% - Comparison with old manuscript and manual editing is necessary Non-Unicode compliant old software for electoral roll maintenance and EPIC generation will stop working Non-Unicode compliant Photo-roll printing software will stop working

Risk avoidance in font conversion Keep Unicode compliant software ready before font conversion is done Compare manuscript after font conversion with manuscript before font conversion manually and edit any errors

Risks in Transliteration Transliteration has less than 99 % accuracy – English names have to be compared and confirmed with the Electors manually and editing needs to be done Risk Mitigation by not printing the transliterated data of the roll unless manual comparison and confirmation with electors has been done Disclaimer in the print of transliterated data with the offer to correct any wrong entries if brought to the notice of Election machinery

Some Hierarchies of Control Tables State Revenue Division Police Station Post Office District PC Town Sub-Division Ward AC Tahsil Block Kanungo Circle Part Panchayat Patwari Circle Section Village

Linking of Control Tables

Risks of Linking Wrong Linking – Comparing manuscripts properly and certification of correctness is a must Administrative units are every changing so linking has to be dynamic

Work Flow of Standardization of Electoral Data Font Conversion to Unicode Transliteration to English Merging of Photographs as binary data Integration of Rolls Printing of Working Copies Verification of Data by- BLOs BLAs Publication of Notice Board Distribution of Pamphlets etc.

Work Flow of Standardization of Electoral Data…….. Editing the Roll to correct errors found during verification Exporting data to the central database Printing of the Draft Roll and its Publication Process of Summary revision Publication of Final Roll

Need for Photo-Merging Unless Photos are merged in the database mismatches are always possible at the time of printing Photos kept separately may get lost over time Mismatch in Photo and EPIC Photos become an integral part of Electoral data Easy to print duplicate EPIC No need of a new photo when data is transposed to another AC

Risks of Photo-merging Photo mismatch One Photo repeated may times over Quality deterioration Many Photos may not match – reduction in apparent Photo Coverage Existing EPIC and Photo Roll printing software will not work Large space needed to keep data

Risk Avoidance of Photo-merging New EPIC and Photo-Roll printing software should be ready before photo- merging Comparison of merged photographs with the face of the elector by a door-to-dood survey by BLO necessary

Ultimate Risk Mitigation for Standardization – Possibility of Rollback Keep a copy of the original database in safe custody of CEO in original fonts and original format with a possibility of Roll back if things do not work out

Infrastructure for Central Database Internet Application for Citizens National Level Mirrors Data of all States at the NIC Data Center at CGO Complex National Level Disaster Recovery Mirror at the NIC Data Center at Hyderabad Data of All Districts Mirrored at the State NIC Center Also Runs Application for ERMS District NIC Center for Keeping the District Level Data

Workflow of making Central Database Complete standardization first Create Infrastructure Train manpower Export data to the Central Database Simultaneously launch the on-line Electoral Roll Management Software Regular monitoring Maintenance

Risks of Central Database Data safety – Crashing of Database, Data loss etc. Data Security – Hacking, unauthorized editing etc. Problems of access, band width, website maintenance etc.

Risk Mitigation for Central Database Multiple Mirrors kept at the district, state and National level Disaster recovery site at National level Data to be kept at the NIC data center with full security The website should be audited for security and reliability before opening for public No back-end access to anybody except authorized DBA, and front end access only through authorized digital signatures

Costs Cost of Data Migration – Costs have not been separately worked out. These will be out of budgets of CEOs for summary revision Costs of central Database – NIC has given a rough estimate of – Rs 113 Crores as non-recurring expenditure Rs 4 Crores annual recurring expenditure

Other Important Issues This will require a very big effort and involvement of AEROs/EROs/DEOs/CEOs and Commission staff full time for the next one year New software development will be a big challenge – We will need different software for different states during the period when the work of standardization is going on. Most of these will be developed at the state level Good technical support at the state level

Other Important Issues A very large training input – A full training plan for all officers specially the AEROs and EROs Coordination between election staff and NIC at all levels Continuous monitoring and hand holding by Zonal sections of their respective states Full Commitment of CEOs

What Will Go Wrong Precautions

Errors will Come into the Roll Errors due to – Inaccuracies of font conversion Inaccuracies of transliteration Inaccuracies in linking of control tables Inaccuracies of Photo-merging Precautions – Physical comparison of the old Roll Manuscript with the manuscript after conversion and correction of errors by manual editing

Current software will become non-usable Due to – Change of font Change in able structure and data-types to bring about standardization Photo-merging This will put a stop to – Updation of Rolls Printing of Rolls Making of EPIC Precaution – New software should be ready and deployed before font conversion and photo-merging

Decentralized databases not usable after centralization Once centralization is done only centralized database should be used otherwise it will not remain current and the entire effort will go waste

Data safety Centralized database may crash Precaution – There must be multiple mirrors with a disaster recovery system

Data Security Website and database may be hacked There may be unauthorized aceess Precaution – Website must be security audited Database must have an audit trail Only access should be through a digital signature protected front end We must have professionally managed database and website

Problems of Access Band width at the filed level may be a problem so that access may become limited, and field officers may not be able to update Precaution – We should have an intra-net for our field officers with broad band

Finally – In a Project of this magnitude there will be unforeseen Problems requiring instant solution Precaution – A team of highly qualified professionals needed at all time

Why Should we do it? Necessary for Safety and security of Data National search Ready access by citizens On-line applications by citizens Tracking of applications by citizens and monitoring by Commission Detection and avoidance of duplicates Inter AC transposition Safety and security of Data Makes us UID ready