Disabled persons get postal ballot facility

ECP decides to take oath from staff involved the polling

PESHAWAR: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has decided to extend the facility of postal ballot to people with disabilities during the 2018 general elections. The facility is already available to government servants.

During a presentation to ECP staff and media-persons, ECP Additional Secretary Zafar Iqbal Hussain said that the facility was being provided in view of the recently amended election act.

“The move aims to encourage special persons to exercise their right to vote and to spare them of the hassle of coming to polling stations,” he said.



Hussain said the facility would be extended to those having the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) identify card with logo of special persons. “There are more than 0.2 million disabled voters registered in the country currently,” he informed.

Talking about the new laws, the ECP official said the stakeholders had felt the need of reforms to make the election process more transparent.

“For transparent elections, the ECP has also decided to take oath from all staff involved in the election process, including members of the law enforcement agencies (LEAs), that they would abide by the law,” he said.

He added that after checking the pilot projects for the Result Transmission System (RTS) at the NA-4 by-poll, the RTS would be implemented across the country in the upcoming general elections.

“Under the system, the presiding officer will send a scanned copy of the result electronically through an android app,” he added.



Briefing the media about gender sensitivity in the voting process, ECP Director for Gender Gap Initiatives Nighat Sadiq said the newly amended law had given power to the poll body to nullify elections in constituencies with less than 10% female votes.

“The step of ensuring at least 10% participation of women in a constituency has been taken to encourage women and to discourage anyone who bar them from exercising their right,” Sadiq said, adding the staff would get trainings to ensure gender-neutral polling process.

For enlistment of unregistered voters, ECP Director General Elections Yousaf Khan said the electoral watchdog would soon kick off a drive to register those not yet enlisted in the voters’ lists.