Noida, India
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A gargantuan task is underway to update the longest voter list in the world. This is India, and that’s nearly a billion people whose details need to be verified before they’re allowed to participate in the world’s largest democracy.
Across the country, tens of thousands of civil servants are rushing to input voter details into a database, by hand. And the deadline is Friday for India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh.
The last list dates from 2003 and authorities say it needs cleaning up to reflect mass migration from the countryside to the cities, the accumulation of deceased voters and to remove those on the list illegally.
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