How, for example, would the commissioners, ensconced in their offices, even if their functionaries have gone down to the ward and union levels, verify the number of the deceased since the last updating of the list, glued to their chairs? This is not possible without going door-to-door physically. How will the EC identify those who have shifted residence since the last electoral roll was updated? Again, it is not possible without visiting each and every household in the city and the village.

The many supporting documents that one has to produce before the registration officers to get enlisted as a voter will dissuade people from registering. And this will keep most of those that have attained eligibility as voters out of the franchise, something that is the bounden duty of the EC to ensure does not happen.

Will the CEC please tell us how he would determine the fake voters on the roll, not to speak of the duplicate names in the voter list of which there are many? Are we to believe that he expects the fake voters to take human form, turn up in the election commissioner's office and declare in front of him that they are fake voters? There is no other way than to go door-to-door to rid the errors of the 2001 voter list that had been exposed in the report of the NDI as well as the EU after the last election and to which the CEC had referred soon after assumption of his office. And yet the CEC, overwhelmed by his ego, continues with his obstinacy

Granted that these are early days yet of the CEC's month long plan of voter list updating. But we wonder whether the EC should spend any length of time to see a system that is fundamentally flawed can work. It will be an utter waste of time and energy.

We feel that there is no other alternative but for the CEC to conform to the very clear method prescribed in the rules for updating voter list. This is as clear as daylight, but for some inexplicable reason has failed to dawn on the CEC.

We find his obstinacy baffling.