Statistical expectation: 99.93% votes cast at NA-122 are valid, says NADRA

Tribunal reserves its decision on NADRA’s supplementary report.

LAHORE:

The National Database and Registration Authority’s (NADRA) told an election tribunal on Saturday that 99.93 per cent votes cast in the NA-122 constituency during the May 2013 polls were found valid in light of NADRA’s statistical expectations.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan had lost the NA-122 seat to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) leader and incumbent National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq in the general election and later challenged Sadiq’s victory at the tribunal.

The election tribunal’s judge Kazim Ali Malik, however, reserved his decision till June 15 for deciding the fate of a supplementary report submitted by NADRA after completion of cross-examination.

NADRA, in its earlier report submitted on May 9, had said it could verify only 73,478 votes out of a total of 184,151 votes cast at the NA-122 constituency in May 2013 polls.

However, the database authority later submitted a supplementary forensic report stating that 5,898 (96.7 per cent) votes out 6,123 votes –earlier declared as invalid – could be declared or considered as valid now.

On Saturday, NADRA chairman Usman Mubeen was cross-examined by the PTI and the PML-N’s counsels. Mubeen, in reply to a query by the PML-N counsel Barrister Asjad Saeed, accepted that he had told the inquiry commission probing alleged rigging that 97 per cent votes cast at May 2013 polls were valid, according to NADRA’s statistical expectations.

He claimed that 99.93 per cent votes cast at NA-122 were found valid. He said out of 6,123 votes earlier declared invalid only 204 votes were invalid while the rest were valid.  He also claimed that 24, rather than 570 votes, were cast by people outside the constituency.

The PTI counsel Anees Hashmi, however, objected to NADRA’s verifying votes using electoral roll rather relying solely on the CNIC numbers on counterfoils. “How could NADRA do this as the court had ordered it to verify the CNIC numbers on counterfoils,” he said.

Hashmi said it was not NADRA’s job to add to the digits of invisible/illegible CNIC number to prove them correct. “NADRA’S work was to examine the CNICs mentioned on counterfoils rather than verifying them after making changes with the record,” he said.

According to Hashmi, the tribunal judge also agreed to his objection and told NADRA chairman that he had directed him to verify the CNICs on counterfoils rather than verifying them from electoral roll.

Hashmi said during the cross examination NADRA chairman accepted that they did not issue CNICs with 12 digits and that their system declared such numbers as invalid.

The NADRA chief denied the PTI counsel’s claim that there was large number of unallocated used counterfoils which NADRA mentioned as allocated, used counterfoils in its report.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2015.