Decisions of great import for a democracy begin to be made even before the first vote is cast. Who appears on the electoral register? Who will get his papers verified? And who must explain his absence? Questioning these decisions turns what might have been an administrative task into a matter of national legitimacy. India faces this threat now. According to Reuters, some 130 million names have been deleted from electoral registers through the process called the Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, which started last year.