Nagpur: At a time when voters are being urged to verify their names in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) draft electoral roll, Maharashtra’s election portal itself remained out of reach for hours on Sunday, leaving citizens staring at an “internal server error” instead of their electoral details.Complaints began surfacing through the morning, and when TOI checked the Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer’s SIR portal (ceoelection.maharashtra.gov.in) around 10am, it was inaccessible, displaying the message: “The page cannot be displayed because an internal server error has occurred.” Repeated checks found the same error till around 4pm, leaving the portal inaccessible for nearly six hours, while some users complained of access problems even later in the evening.The snag comes at a crucial stage of SIR, when citizens are checking whether their names have made it to the draft roll and verifying their electoral particulars. Those eligible but missing from the draft can apply for inclusion through Form 6.“I tried several times since morning, first thinking it was an issue with my internet. I then tried from another phone, but the same error appeared. We are being asked to check our names within a stipulated period, so the website should at least remain accessible,” said Shobha Madne, a resident of New Manish Nagar.Another voter, Avinash Kulkarni, said, “There is already confusion over changed polling parts and where to find our names. When the portal itself does not open after repeated attempts, it only makes the process more frustrating.”A senior district administration official said ongoing backend updation could be behind the disruption. “Voter data and information related to rationalisation of polling stations are being uploaded. BLOs are also being reshuffled and the corresponding data is being updated. It is possible that the error is occurring because of these backend changes,” the official said.Sources in the admin, however, said the main technical operations of the portal are handled from Mumbai, and the district administration would not be in a position to conclusively identify the cause of the error.With the claims and objections period underway, Sunday’s prolonged disruption added another hurdle for citizens attempting to verify their electoral status. TOI tried contacting senior election officials in Mumbai for clarification on the outage, but calls went unanswered until the time of going to press.
