Supreme Court hearing: Crafting an e-voting system may take a year, says AG

Says it will take time to develop safe online system and anti-hacking firewalls.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistani voters living abroad would not be able to cast ballots in the upcoming elections, as it would take almost a year to develop an e-voting system for the country, Attorney General of Pakistan Irfan Qadir informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

“Though the ministry of information technology has expertise to bring in the e-voting system, it needs time to develop different softwares and anti-hacking firewalls and legislation to make it workable,” said Qadir .

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and comprising Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed was hearing two identical petitions seeking right to suffrage for overseas Pakistanis.

The bench directed the Election Commission of Pakistan to consider the ideas of ministry of IT as shared by the attorney general and come up with a workable solution enabling overseas Pakistanis to cast their votes.

Qadir informed the bench that a meeting was arranged in his office on March 18 where IT and NADRA officials observed that although e-voting mechanism was in vogue in different countries, it was not free of flaws. An official of the IT ministry informed the meeting that they can introduce the system, but it will need time, Qadir said.



The attorney general said with e-voting system there would be no need of polling stations in other countries for expatriate Pakistanis.

Meanwhile, Director General Election Commission of Pakistan Dr Sher Afgan informed the court that the commission faced technical, legal and financial problems and would not be able to devise any mechanism to let Pakistanis vote from outside the country.

Article 222 of the Constitution and Electoral Rolls Act 1974 are the impediments for allowing Pakistanis living abroad to vote without coming to Pakistan, contended the ECP official. “These laws urge on the residence of the voters in the same constituencies where they want to cast their votes,” he said.

Secondly, the ECP lacked the finances to work on any idea involving e-voting or having polling stations abroad to enable 4.5 million registered Pakistani voters living in other countries to cast ballot in the upcoming elections.



Weak security on information highway

Dr Sher Afgan further said there were security issues about allowing polling through internet and the rules allow only two kinds of voting, direct and postal balloting.

The online traffic is susceptible to risks like hacking and identity theft, he said.

“The total list of registered voters numbering about 90 million was not uploaded on the official website of ECP as the intelligence agencies and NADRA advised us to avoid the step fearing hacking and stealing of important data,” the ECP director general told the Supreme Court.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20^th, 2013.