Graduates trying to register as voters for the Telangana graduate MLC elections are running into a broken online system, and the deadline is November 6. The Form-18 link on the Chief Electoral Officer’s website, ceotelangana.nic.in, has been failing for two days.

Applicants who try to open the Form-18 voter registration link are being greeted by an error screen. The message reads as follows.

Error 503: Service Unavailable

The problem began on Sunday and carried into Monday. For people trying to get their names on the rolls before the cutoff, that is two lost days in a window that was already short.

Form-18 is the application used by graduates to register as voters in the graduate constituency elections. Because the online route is central to the process, a portal that refuses to load puts every pending applicant under pressure at the same time.

Where the registration drive stands

The two graduate constituencies at the center of the problem are Mahabubnagar-Ranga Reddy-Hyderabad and Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda. Eligible graduates in both seats have been told to apply through Form-18 by November 6.

Registration numbers are not where officials want them to be. In the previous election, the two constituencies had 10.36 lakh voters combined. The CEO’s office says about 9 lakh applications have come in so far.

That comparison needs care. The previous voter count and the current application total are not the same measure, so the figures do not tell us how many eligible graduates are still missing from the process. What they do show is that the drive has a long way to go with very little time left on the clock.

Why Telangana readers should pay attention

This story lands directly in Telangana. The two constituencies affected sit inside the state, and the people locked out of the online form are Telangana graduates who want a say in who represents them in the Legislative Council. For anyone who meets the eligibility criteria and has not yet applied, the glitch is not a technical inconvenience. It is a direct threat to their ability to vote.

The political stakes are also visible. The BRS and several other political parties have already asked election officials to extend the registration deadline. Their demand reflects a simple concern: if the portal stays down near the cutoff, the people most likely to be shut out are those who waited until the final days.

What officials are asking eligible graduates to do

The state Chief Electoral Officer, Sudarshan Reddy, has made the deadline clear. Eligible graduates in both constituencies must apply through Form-18 by November 6.

With the online link failing, the CEO’s office is advising eligible graduates not to wait until the last date. Instead, they are being urged to use the offline alternative that is available to them.

The source material does not spell out what that offline route involves, including where applicants should go or which documents they need. Anyone affected should contact the election office directly for the exact steps before the cutoff, rather than relying on the online portal to recover in time.

The clock and the countdown

The timing makes this more urgent. The deadline falls on November 6, and the portal problem has already consumed two days that applicants could have used to file online. Every hour the error screen stays up pushes more people toward the offline route, which may be slower and less convenient for many graduates.

The technical failure is also a credibility test for the election machinery. Voter registration is one of the few steps in an election cycle where a citizen has to act first. When the official channel fails at that stage, the burden falls on the applicant to figure out an alternative, often under pressure and with little notice.

For now, the facts are clear. The Form-18 link on ceotelangana.nic.in has been returning a 503 error, the deadline is November 6, roughly 9 lakh applications have been received across the two constituencies, and officials are pointing eligible graduates to offline filing. Graduates who have not yet applied should not assume the portal will recover in time.