It was supposed to be a simple morning of voting, just a quick stop at the polling booth and a proud “I voted” moment. But for Tamil actor and digital creator Akshaya Hariharan, the day turned into something she never expected: a claim that her vote had already been cast before she even arrived.
And she didn’t just say it quietly. She shared it with shock, frustration, and lot of unanswered questions.
A normal voting day that turned into confusion in Adyar
Akshaya Hariharan travelled from Velachery to her polling station in Adyar, Chennai, expecting to cast her vote in the Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections 2026. But things didn’t go as planned.
She said she had not received her voter slip, so she checked online to confirm her booth details before heading there. After reaching the polling station, she waited for nearly an hour, thinking the process was just slow due to the rush.
But what she was told next changed everything.
@ECISVEEP please spread the news and cast your ballot tender vote if this is the case and cancel the fake vote with a complaint pic.twitter.com/eu5xkYB1k9
— akshaya hariharan (@akshaya__31) April 23, 2026
According to Akshaya, election officials informed her that her vote had already been recorded.
In a video posted on X (formerly Twitter), she described her disbelief: her name and details were correctly listed, but the photograph attached to the voter record was not hers.
“Hi, I am just here to say that someone else has already cast my vote. It is really shocking,” she said in the video.
She added that even though her second name “Hariharan” matched official records, the image shown was of another person entirely. For her, the mismatch raised a serious concern: how did verification fail at the booth?
“Someone else voted in my name,” says shocked actor
Akshaya’s biggest concern wasn’t just that her vote was already marked. It was how it happened.
She alleged that even a fingerprint had been recorded against her entry, suggesting that biometric or verification checks had been completed without catching the mismatch.
“Everything is correct on the paper, but only the photos are different. So they should have checked before,” she said.
A ‘tender vote’ that didn’t feel like real voting
After the confusion at the booth, Akshaya said she was eventually allowed to cast what she was told was a “tender vote.” But she admitted she wasn’t even fully clear on how the procedure worked.
Unlike the usual process involving an electronic voting machine (EVM), she said this vote felt different and less transparent.
“I do not find it appropriate because it was just a paper, and they did not even seal it in front of me. No one had answers to my questions. It is really disappointing,” she shared.
Also Read: Tamil Nadu election 2026: Rajinikanth votes at Stella Maris College booth in Chennai, greets voters with inked finger
For Akshaya, the experience left her unsettled. In a follow-up post on Instagram, she said it didn’t feel like she had actually voted at all because it wasn’t done through the standard EVM process.
Despite her frustration, she tried to end her message on a civic note, urging others not to skip voting. “This is the best I could do though. Please do not waste your vote. You still have time,” she wrote.
Complaint planned
Akshaya also said she intends to file a formal complaint with the Returning Officer regarding the incident. Her questions about verification, identity mismatch, procedural clarity remain unanswered for now.
Meanwhile, voting continued across all 234 Assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu on April 23. Several well-known personalities from the Tamil film industry were also seen exercising their franchise. These included Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Dhanush, Vikram, Vijay Sethupathi, Sivakarthikeyan and Khushbu Sundar.
Akshaya Hariharan has worked in films like ‘Saba Nayagan (2023)’, ‘Satya (2024)’, ‘Bloody Beggar (2024)’. She is also known as a content creator with a strong social media presence.