About EchoSearch
A tool for finding a person in long lists of names, when you can't be sure how their name was typed.
Why it exists
Electoral rolls, scheme beneficiary lists and college merit lists are long, and the names in them are typed by many different people. The same Mohammad Shaikh can appear as Mohd. Sheikh, Muhammed Shaikh or Mahamad Shekh. Lakshmi can be Laxmi. A phone's PDF viewer finds only the exact letters you type, so the person you are looking for can be on page 600 and still not be found.
EchoSearch was built for people who do this every day: booth level officers, volunteers and social workers checking whole wards, and families checking whether a relative's name is on a list.
How it finds names
It uses spelling rules drawn from real rolls: common short forms (Mohd and Mohammad), letters that are used for the same sound (Shaikh and Sheikh, v and w), doubled letters and swapped vowels. A search shows exactly which rules it used, and you can turn any of them off or add your own. When the rules find nothing, Close enough also looks for names that simply sound alike.
There is no AI in it. The same search on the same documents gives the same answer every time.
Why it runs on your device
These lists hold people's names, ages and addresses. EchoSearch reads, stores and searches your PDFs inside your browser, so they never go anywhere. That also means it works offline once it is installed. The privacy policy sets out the two small things that do use the internet.
Who makes it
EchoSearch is a personal project by Zaid Shaikh. It is not a government service and is not connected to any election authority. Ideas, problems and questions are welcome at contact@zaidshaikh.com.