The Election Commission has certified the 2026 voters’ register, putting the number of people qualified to vote at 17,641,006 — a net increase of 90,835 on the 2025 electoral list.
The certification also changes how parliamentary seats are distributed. Because voter proportions have shifted between districts, the Commission has updated the allocations: Colombo and Gampaha each rise from 18 seats to 19, while Jaffna falls from seven to six and Badulla from nine to eight.
The four changes cancel out — two seats added, two removed — which is consistent with the total number of elected district seats staying fixed. The adjustment is the mechanism that keeps representation tied to population ratios, as the law requires.
The revised distributions are to be formally published in an Extraordinary Gazette.
The register that has now been certified is the one that went on public display earlier this year. The Commission set a 5 June deadline for claims and objections against the preliminary list, which was available at District Election Offices, Grama Niladhari divisions and on the Commission’s website.
Not reported: NewsFirst’s filing does not give the date the Extraordinary Gazette will be issued, a district-by-district breakdown of the certified register, the number of new registrations against deletions that produced the net increase of 90,835, or whether any other district came close to a seat change. It also does not say when the revised allocations would first apply.
On sourcing: This story is carried here on a single verified source. NewsFirst published it at 1.16 p.m. Colombo time on 30 October; no other verified newsroom had filed on the certification at the time of writing, and Ada Derana remains unreachable. Searches for corroboration returned mainly 2024-era registration stories, which carry different figures and should not be read as confirmation of these ones.
