"When software becomes the rulebook, accountability becomes diffused." Discuss the governance risks of digitising citizen-facing processes and suggest safeguards.

Digital public infrastructure such as Aadhaar, UPI and DigiLocker has widened what the state can deliver. The 2025-26 Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls shows the risk on the other side. When platform code changes faster than published orders, the app's checks decide who keeps the right to vote. Responsibility then gets spread across officials, vendors and code.

Governance risks

• Unwritten rules: when an app field rejects a document or a spelling mismatch, it works as a rule that was never notified. Aadhaar is already listed as an identity document under Section 23(4), RP Act 1950, yet it was added to Bihar's SIR list only after a Supreme Court order [3].
• No one to hold responsible: a voter who is excluded cannot tell whether the ERO, the BLO, the vendor or the code made the error. The Section 24 appeal route assumes there is a reasoned order to challenge [1].
• Burden of proof meets the digital divide: voters must prove they are eligible. Poor connectivity or low digital skills can turn a software glitch into loss of the vote, weakening Article 326.
• Unclear outcomes: Bihar's roll fell from 7.89 crore to about 7.42 crore electors [1]. The public data does not separate genuine removals from eligible voters who could not get through the process.
• Single points of failure: server outages and repeated deadline extensions were reported in several states. Proven DPI systems were built over years; the SIR platform ran on a compressed timeline.

Code change → no public order → field follows app → exclusion → no reasoned order → no appeal

Fig: How accountability gets lost

Safeguards

• Treat code changes like legal rules: issue every platform change as a dated public order tied to a software version, and allow independent audits.
• Reasoned decisions that can be appealed: record a reason for every rejection, as the ECI already requires for deletions [2].
• Detailed transparency: publish deletion counts booth by booth for each category (dead, shifted, duplicate, untraceable) [2]. This shows where the process, not the roll, is failing.
• Human checks: require repeated visits before marking someone "untraceable," plus verification by Booth Level Agents (BLAs) [2].
• Both channels and fair deadlines: keep the paper route open, and extend deadlines automatically for logged server downtime.
• Data protection: handle voter data under the DPDP Act, 2023.

Digitisation increases both what the state can do and the scale of its mistakes. The way forward is "rule of law by design": publish the rule before shipping the code, and keep a named official answerable for every decision. This follows the 2nd ARC's call for citizen-centric e-governance. It would make digital rolls protect universal franchise and SDG 16.6 (accountable, transparent institutions) instead of eroding them.