Women voters up by 11%, men by 8.5% in 5 years in Tamil Nadu

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has 5.91 crore voters as per the final revised electoral rolls, released on Thursday. Of this, 2.98 crore are women and 2.92 crore men. There are 5,472 transsexual voters in the state. There are 1,020 women voters for every 1,000 men voters.


While the number of women voters has increased by 11% in the past five years, men voters have increased by only 8.5% in the state. In the 2014 LS polls too, the three southern states – Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh – had women voters more or less equal to their male counterparts. Karnataka was the only state in the south with a poor voter sex ratio in the 2014 polls. In other parts of the country, only Arunachal Pradesh had a better voter sex ratio five years ago and all big states had more men voters than women.

The electorate is longer this time in Tamil Nadu compared to the 2014 Lok Sabha (5.51crore) and 2016 assembly elections (5.77 crore). More than 82% of Tamil Nadu’s population (as per 2011 census) has voting rights now. It is also an indication of ageing of the population.

Of the 32 districts, 27 have more women voters than men. Only in 5 districts, including Salem, Dharmapuri, Kanyakumari and Krishnagiri, which were notorious for female infanticide some decades ago, men voters outnumber women.

Chennai district has the maximum voters. Of the 38.18 lakh voters in Chennai district, 19.34 lakh are women. Kancheepuram (36.9 lakh) has second highest voter strength. In terms of assembly constituencies, Chennai Harbour, with 1.66 lakh voters, has the lowest voter strength and Shozhinganallur constituency on the IT highway continues to have maximum (6.18 lakh) voters.

“Voter data based on Lok Sabha constituencies and assembly constituencies will be released in the coming days. Eligible voters can still register (www.nvsp.in), change addresses and delete names till the Election Commission fixes a deadline,” said state chief electoral officer Satyabrata Sahoo, who released the final roll. Youth who are 18 years old as on January 1, 2019, are eligible to register.

Though several thousand people from Tamil Nadu are living abroad, only 97 NRIs hailing from Tamil Nadu have registered themselves on the rolls. “We request NRIs from Tamil Nadu to register their names in the electoral roll. Only passport is required for it,” said Sahoo.

There are around 9 lakh first time voters – aged between 18 and 19. This is only one-third of the state’s population in that age. “We will have special campaigns to register more first-time voters in the state. The campaigns will be carried out in colleges,” Sahoo said.

Some 3.84 crore (65%) voters are in the age group of 20 to 50 years. About 1.38 crore voters are aged between 30 and 39 years.